We are close to 63% visa-independent in the US: Infosys
New Delhi: Infosys was “intensely focused” on the skill and generating of local jobs in markets such as the US, which helped the IT major be about 63 percent visa-independent in the US and more than 50 percent in Europe and Australia-New Zealand, said a top management member.
Infosys, which sees the US as its largest market, said it was too early to comment on the approach the new US government could take with regard to work visas, but it expected to continue to benefit from its ongoing localization efforts.
“We still see challenges for talent mobility. New proposed immigration regulations in the US could affect the cost of wages, the granting of visas, the residence of visas and the overall cost of compliance. Our localization program in the US, Europe and Australia, launched three years ago, greatly mitigates this, “said Pravin Rao, chief operating officer of Infosys, at a recent meeting of analysts.
He added that Infosys has eight innovation hubs in the US and the EU, nine global Digital Studios (including a 5G laboratory in Melbourne) and seven global cyber protection centers. “We have been intensely focused on job creation in the US for the past three years,” he noted.
In September, the firm in Bengaluru said it plans to employ 12,000 American workers over the next two years, which will take the hiring situation in the country to five thousand years.
While IT businesses are increasing their presence in the U.S. and other markets and employing local people over the past few years to overcome visa-related challenges, IT entrepreneurs said.
North America is the largest market for Infosys, with 60.7 percent of its revenue, followed by Europe (24.3 percent), the rest of the world (12 percent) and India (3 percent), as of September 30, 2020 In the quarter of September, Infosys rose 8.5 percent year-on-year in revenue to $ 24,570 million. Infosys had 2,40,208 employees at the end of the quarter. It does not provide a region-specific breakdown of staff counts.
‘We recently launched’ reskill and restart platform ‘, which will play a key role in hiring local talent. We will focus specifically on building roads for those affected by the economic downturn, ” he said, adding that Infosys is also increasing its presence in nearby locations such as Mexico and Canada.
“We can see some changes regarding the Trump regime, but it will not go back to the old days before Trump,” he said, adding that Infosys’ approach to localization “is probably the right way”. “This is what we expected about three years ago, and we are seeing success and we have benefited from it and will probably continue to do so,” Rao said.
Indian IT players closely monitor US President Joe Biden’s approach and policy regarding H-1B work visas used by a large number of Indian professionals. Biden will be sworn in as US President on January 20, 2021. In June, during the Covid-19 the pandemic, the Donald Trump administration banned until the end of the year the entry into the U.S. of workers in several major non-immigrant visa categories, including H-1B, and argued that they were eating at U.S. jobs.
Those affected include the relatives of the H-1B, L-1 and certain categories of J1 visas. Later, certain exemptions in H-1B and L-1 travel bans were announced for those continuing with the same employer. The step that can help Indian IT professionals and those working in the healthcare sector.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in special occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Businesses depend on hiring tens of thousands of employees each year from countries such as India and China.
