Hire American may hurt IT sector

The Trump administration's stress on Buy American Hire American policy which includes a proposal to make getting an H-1B visa tougher is likely to adversely impact Indian IT companies. The US government plans to add stricter restrictions on the H-B selection process.

The H-1B visa program awards 85,000 temporary visas per year through a lottery to skilled foreigners to be employed in speciality occupations. Indian IT companies with offices in the US use H-1B and non-immigrant visas to temporarily employ foreign workers, mostly Indians, who are allegedly paid at rates less than prevailing US wages.
These employees are then outsourced to work for American clients. Through the H-1B visa program Indian IT firms manage to cut cost and gain competitive advantage.

The new regulation also calls for more than doubling the minimum salary for H1B visa holders to US$ 130,000 and a pre-registration rule for availing the visas.

Earlier the US government had accused outsourcing companies including Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys for unjustly availing a higher number of H-1B visas by putting extra tickets in the lottery system. Meanwhile, the stock of TCS was trading at Rs. 2,642.80 per share, up by 0.11 per cent, Infosys Rs. 1,034.35, down 0.39 per cent, Wipro was trading at Rs. 303.25 per share, up by 0.71 per cent.