US visa restrictions could shift more work to SL, India:virtusa
In the event of the inward-looking Trump administration enacting regulations to restrict foreign IT professionals entering the United States, Virtusapolaris, a Us-based technology company, says more work will move out of the US to countries like India and Sri Lanka.
“The demand for technology services in the US cannot be fulfilled by the labour and industry just within the US.
In the event this proposed legislature such as visa regulations was enacted, the work still has to happen and it will result in more work potentially being done outside the shores of the United States,” Virtusapolaris Chairman/ceo Kris Canekeratne told reporters in Colombo.
Virtusapolaris employs about 18,500 IT professionals worldwide and two thirds of that work in India. As the largest IT sector employer in the country, Virtusapolaris employs around 3,500 IT professionals in Sri Lanka.however, over 60 percent of the company’s business comes from the clients in the US, in the fields of financial services, telecommunication, media, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, etc.
One key election promise of the recently elected US President Donald Trump was to bring back jobs to the US and renegotiate some of the trade pacts the US had entered into, to give the American workers what he calls “a fair deal”.
Regulations discouraging technology professional entering could come into effect by way of limiting the number of visas issued and slapping higher visa fees.
In such a scenario, the IT industry will have to either pass the costs to the clients or the clients will have to ask the IT companies to find a way not incur such additional costs.
According to Canekeratne, the IT industry is a matured as well as an established industry, which can withstand headwinds as it has proved in the past.
Meanwhile, Virtusapolaris expects to expand its presence in South Asia, from where the company believes a “bulk” of its growth would come. Virtusa Corporation acquired the Chennai-based Polaris Consulting in a deal valued at US $ 270 million.