Indian IT firms to increase foreign hires abroad
By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 28 April 2009, 15:57 IST   |    14 Comments
Printer Print Email Email
Indian IT firms to increase foreign hires abroad
Bangalore: In a bid to tackle protectionist lobbies by positioning themselves as job creators in the markets they serve, India's top IT firms like TCS, Infosys and Wipro, are planning to increase the proportion of foreign employees in their workforce. TCS plans to double its foreign workforce from the current 10,000 over the next five years, while Infosys and Wipro plans to see 10 to 15 percent of their total employee base as foreigners in three to five years, from around 5 percent now. The move comes in the wake of growing anti-offshoring sentiments in the U.S., the world's biggest market for software services. "It's a strategy to reverse the trend, as we realize that it's necessary to shed the old way of getting only Indians to do the jobs," said Pratik Kumar, Corporate Vice President and HR head of Wipro. "How can you justify the fact that despite significant overseas revenues, we still have over 95 percent Indians on the payroll?" he added. Wipro will set up another centre in a tier-two U.S. town after its Atlanta development centre becomes fully operational in a few months from now. Over the next two years, the company will have around 750 U.S. citizens working at its Atlanta centre. "We aim to undertake significant local hiring, starting this year itself," he said. Among the top Indian technology firms, TCS employs the most number of non-Indians, accounting for almost nine percent of its total workforce. Non-Indians account for around five percent of total workforce at Wipro and Infosys. However, according to Mohandas Pai, HR head of Infosys, despite all the hype around hiring more local workers, finding skilled professionals with adequate programming skills remains a challenge in the US and UK.

siliconindia