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News >> Technology >>
Indian tech firms woo U.S bureaucrats
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 13 March 2007, 17:30 IST
The IT industry, which makes more than two-thirds of its $31 billion (Rs1,37,020 crore) revenue from American companies continuing to outsource technology and back-office work, plans to lobby senators and congressmen, increase local hiring and attract media and influential think tanks.
IT companies are hoping that these moves will bring down the political opposition to work outsourced to companies in India reported a national daily.
The two front runners in the U.S election Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have traditionally opposed on US jobs being outsourced to India. Though hardly any of the candidates, including from the Republican side, have come out yet with specific position statements.
"The fear that the outsourcing rhetoric will surface again is certainly there," said Sudip Banerjee, President of enterprise solutions at Wipro Ltd.
Tech industry representatives in US are hopeful that the election would be mostly about the Iraq war and state of US health care.
Still, "the unemployment situation will be a key variable," admits Kiran Karnik, President of trade body National Association of Software and Service Companies, a powerful industry lobbying group. But, "since the (US) economy is growing and unemployment numbers have not changed, we don't expect outsourcing to be a big issue this time."
Employment of computer programmers, data entry keyers, and software engineers is projected to fall by at least 17 percent between 2004 and 2015, in large US states such as California, New Jersey, Colorado,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Michigan, a survey done by Brookings Institution on outsourcng jobs.