IT cos not dependent on H-1B visa, says Sikka

Washington, June 22: Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka has refuted the general impression that the IT industry is overly dependent on H-1B visas for its business mode, amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on firms abusing the visa system to hire foreign workers on a low wage.

Mr Sikka also believes that the IT firms need to grab the opportunities provided by new technologies like artificial intelligence in a big way to retain its global leadership edge in this fast changing infotech environment.

“It is wrong to say and to think that we are dependent on H-1Bs. For example, if you look over the last 10 years, there are about 65,000, something like that, H1B visas granted every year. That means over 10 years it is 650,000. And we collectively employ millions of people. Infosys alone has 200,000 employees. TCS close to double that number and so on,” 50-year-old Mr Sikka said.

So, the assumption that IT firms are dependent on H-1B visas is not correct, he said in response to a question on the charges that the business model of Indian IT companies is based on H-1B visas and major Indian IT firms like Infosys, Wipro and TCS are expected to be hit by the Trump administration’s crackdown on firms abusing the visa system.

In fact, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to raise this issue with US President Donald Trump during his White House meeting here next week. During his wide ranging phone conversation from Palo Alto in California, Mr Sikka acknowledged that in the last decade and a half, there was a lot of usage of the H-1B visas.