Infosys to hire 10,000 U.S. workers
2,000 will be located at soon-to-open tech center in Indiana
Infosys, one of SAN FRANCIS CO the Indian companies that’s drawn unwanted attention for its business model of hiring Indian engineers on H-1B visas and outsourcing their lower-cost labor to U.S. firms, now wants to hire American.
On Tuesday, it announced the opening of a 2,000-employee tech center in Indianapolis, with another 8,000 jobs for American IT workers in coming years.
The deal comes with a strong dose of sweetener — Indiana will give Infosys up to $31 million in conditional tax credits and training grants, the largest incentive package in the state’s history.
The workers will mainly be computer scientists, engineers and programmers, CEO Vishal Sikka told USA TODAY.
The tech center will open in August. It will be fully staffed by 2021, and its workers will become part of Infosys’ global integrated workforce, Sikka said.
“We’re bringing in the best local talent and coupling that with the best global talent,” he said.
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb said he welcomed the company to the state’s growing tech ecosystem.
“Our higher education institutions are producing a world-class workforce, establishing Indiana as the innovation hub of the Midwest. I look forward to working with Infosys to elevate Indiana to the next level,” he said.
Infosys said it planned to open an additional three hubs around the U.S., focused on technology and innovation. Each will employ 2,000 workers and serve clients in industries including financial services, manufacturing, health care, retail and energy, and more. The company did not say where they planned to locate them or the time frame in which they will be hired.
The 10,000 total new U.S. workers would join Infosys’ global workforce of 200,000. The company doesn’t disclose how many work in which countries or what percentage of its staff will be U.S.-based when the entire program is built out.
Infosys is an India-based information technology company that provides consulting and outsourcing services globally. Its headquarters are in India, but it has a U.S. office in Palo Alto, Calif., where Sikka is based.
It is one of the largest employers of H-1B visa holders in the United States, a program President Trump has railed against and vowed to end.
The visa program allows companies to hire foreigners in specialty occupations under three-year work visas that can be extended for another three years. A total of 85,000 are issued each year. Competition is fierce, and so many applications flood the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services each year that the window to apply typically lasts only a week. Under current rules, if companies pay holders more than $60,000 in salary, they do not need to prove there were no qualified Americans to fill the position.