Indian IT firms to hire from campuses in US, UK

Indian information technology (IT) services companies plan to replicate their model of hiring freshers from universities and training them in important global markets such as the US and the UK.

So far IT services majors such as Infosys, TCS, Wipro and others have been dependent on sending engineers from back home to these markets, which rank number one and two in terms of generating revenues, for servicing their customers.

But, with the Donald Trump-led US government pushing for restrictions on talent movement to protect jobs for local people and Theresa May’s statements that visa norms for Indians in the UK may not remain as liberal as they are today, Indian IT firms are looking to protect themselves by hiring locally.

These developments certainly worry Indian IT firms which have created $108 billion export market largely by playing the cost arbitrage card. For them, sending Indian engineers on projects abroad has been more cost-effective than hiring locally.

Infosys said the company has made “similar attempts” to hire engineers from campuses in the US, the way started creating right technology talents three decades ago from Indian engineering colleges.

“Our endeavour now is to step that up in the US and that is the right thing to do because you want to ...build local talent pools organically and then look for global talent to supplement it,” said Ravi Kumar S, deputy chief operating officer, Infosys.

Last year, the Ben ga lu ruheadquartered IT services major hired fresh graduates from schools in the US and brought them to its training centre in Mysuru. “This year we are doing this in bigger numbers.”

Infosys is planning to set up a training centre in the US too. Industry body Nasscom recently claimed that Indian IT services firms collectively hired 50,000 local engineers in the US alone over the last decade and increased hiring too.

“We will have to staff at all levels. When you are building localisation by design you are building cadres. So, we went to campus this year and hired local engineers and have trained them. Now, it is a consistent programme for graduate and post graduate levels,” says Jatin Dalal, chief financial officer, Wipro. “it is a balancing act and the company has managed the cost despite localisation.” Wipro has put in place a dedicated localisation programme as part of its growth strategy.