Bengaluru: Hiring in IT industry in the country has slowed down drastically with the advent of automation, a growing sentiment towards protectionism across various foreign markets such as the US, Australia and Singapore, and the changing business models of the Indian IT services companies.
“IT industry can no longer be seen as a net employment generator of the country. The Indian IT firms have been looking to rationalize headcount as they have been automating processes and leaning to do the job in a more productive way,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, the president of Indian Staffing Federation (ISF).
With Indian IT firms moving towards a local hiring policy, fearing the likely changes to the H1B visa program, the entry level Indians can no longer dream of going to the US.
Ms. Chakraborty feels that Infosys’s announcement on Tuesday that it will hire 10,000 American locals is moere “posturing” to pander to the US government than anything else. However, lack of availability of skilled workers in the US continues to be the bigger concern that needs to be addressed.
She said that the entry-level engineers in the Rs. 25,000 to 30,000-salary bracket will now have to forget about going to the US as the Trump administration has increased the salary threshold for the employees under H1B visa program.
