U.S. coax Indian firms to generate more jobs

By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 31 December 2009, 22:07 IST   |    4 Comments
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U.S. coax Indian firms to generate more jobs
Bangalore: With economy coming to normal stage, but unemployment stuck at double-digit levels, states and municipalities across the U.S. are scrambling to persuade Indian companies to hire more number of local talents in the U.S. This year, TCS has hired some 250 graduates of Ohio State University, the University of Cincinnati, and other nearby schools. Wipro Technologies, which had opened its center in Atlanta in March 2009, has now 350 employees; nearly 300 of them Americans, including senior managers recruited from U.S. tech rivals. Infosys Technologies, meanwhile, is planning an operation in Dallas to target some of the $52 billion the U.S. government will spend on outsourcing work in 2010. All the American states, like Dallas, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Tallahassee have been actively courting Indian tech outfits. For Indian firms, U.S. facilities can mean more work on government and health-care projects; areas where laws prevent the transfer of data overseas. An on-the-ground strategy gives them access to local workers who can better understand cultural nuances. This may help Indian IT giants to compete against U.S. rivals IBM and Accenture, which tend to win lucrative consulting contracts that hinge on solving complicated business problems on-site, rather than simply writing computer code for cheap wages in India. Sambuddha Deb, Wipro Vice President, who makes sure the company's India-based and foreign employees work seamlessly together, said, "We need to become more efficient, more sophisticated. It's not just about setting up software factories in India." The major concern for Indian companies is that hiring Americans is far more expensive than shipping work off to India. TCS staffers in Milford, for instance, earn more than $50,000 per year, vs. the $7,000 to $8,000 that Indians doing similar work make in Bangalore.