TCS is increasing local hiring in US

Indian IT major Tata consultancy service on Monday informed that they have increased the local hiring in the U.S and it would help the company in the wake of new H1B rules in which the Trump administration decided to hike minimum wage requirements and narrow the definition of specialty occupation for H-1B visas.

According to a Times of India report, TCS has said that the ratio of their local work force in the US and other different geographies to staff on work visa are almost equal number. Five years ago, the previous was significantly lower.

The other Indian companies are also working their best to cope up with the new rule, the report added.

According to the report they are speeding up campus hiring programmes, giving importance to STEM education in the US, and establishing innovation centres to attract local talent. These make the hires relatively cheaper, often cheaper than bringing someone on an H-1B visa, the report added.“Our location independent methods and local hiring will help mitigate the impact to a large extent,” reports the Times of India quoting Milind Lakkad, TCS’s executive VP and chief human resource officer.

“That does not mean there will not be any impact at all, but we will have to deal with it, quantify it and figure out the strategy,” he said.

The pandemic has been a game changer, Lakkad said, when it comes to changing the mindset of the people and the management. With no travel to the US in the last six months for onsite projects, customers and employees have realized that it is possible to work on critical projects in the US even while sitting in India. “Chances of that happening are now more than ever. Even earlier, we were used to offshoring, but for critical skills, customers thought they need to be with them. That’s no longer the case anymore,” Lakkad said, as reported by the TOI.