Indian IT firms hiring local talent in U.S.

New Delhi: U.S. economy may be coming out of recession but there are still thousands of people who are unemployed. To ease the pain Indian IT companies are hiring local talent to strengthen their company. In the past 12-18 months, around 15,000 US professionals have joined Indian firms across function, from entry-level customer care to senior level sales and consulting positions, reports Shelley Singh of Economic Times.

Experts feel that this trend will increase further as Indian players strive to address concerns over flight of jobs, besides strengthening their own onsite services delivery capability. Indian IT's umbrella body, Nasscom, sees U.S. protectionism as a key issue that could slow down growth of the $50-billion technology outsourcing business, spurring Indian companies to hire more local talent. The U.S. market accounts for 61 percent of the business for Indian services providers.

In the U.S. currently locals comprise about 30 percent of the Indian IT employee base of over 100,000. 4-5 years ago this number was restricted to only few hundreds. This is up from just a few hundreds 4-5 years ago, when most onsite needs were met by flying out engineers from India on H1B visas and the local talent was sought only for a few consulting type jobs. "It's also a sign of evolution and maturity of the industry. More Indian companies will be creating onsite jobs and hiring local talent as the industry expands," says Pramod Bhasin, Chairman of Nasscom and CEO of Genpact, India's largest business services provider.

"As the industry has grown bigger, there's lot more need for long-term staff. This need is being met by local hiring. At the same time, the short term assignments are done by a combination of locals and flying out staff from India," says TV Mohandas Pai, member of board and director, HR, Infosys Technologies.

The present spurt in hiring locals is due to a combination of the "economic slump and more easily available talent", says Ameet Nivsarkar, Vice President, Nasscom. In fact, most Indian companies hire local talent in what are Tier II cities in the US like Arkansas, St Antonio, Tampa, Kansas City, Alabama, and Buffalo.

Sid Pai, Managing Partner, TPI, a global sourcing advisory firm, sums the trend up saying that one would have to live with the idea of lower margins eventually. "As the industry expands, it will have to learn to deliver operations in consuming countries as well and live with lower margins, it's part of the growth story," he says.