Proposed US reforms to H1-B visas influence Indian tech professionals to look out for Canada and Europe

Sunny Nair, a student in India has always looked up to working with a top IT firm in the US. He however now feels that the visa reforms that are being pursued by Donald Trump will never let him realize the much-cherished ambition.

Nair is worried that the Trump’s visa reforms will include curbing the H1-B visas and this will affect several highly skilled IT professionals in India who are sent to the US every year through this visa.

The analysts have said that the issue poses threat to the growing relationship between the US President Trump and Indian Prime minister Modi. Both the leaders have offered invitations to pay a visit to their respective nations but are however moving forward in a conflicting direction on the issue of immigration and particularly H1-B visas.

Sunny has said that he had always dreamt of working for a Tech giant such as the Infosys but this will never be realized now perhaps before heading to his classes dejectedly, as quoted by the Profit NDTV.

The aspirant tech professional had made plans to immigrate to the US for higher studies after obtaining an engineering degree from Mumbai’s Don Bosco Institute of Technology. He had anticipated that this would assist him to avail a lifetime opportunity at one of the top tech service outsourcing firms such as the Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services or Infosys’s.

Nair is at the moment apprehensively planning an alternate strategy for his future. Curbing the visas would be a crucial negative visa reform by the US President Donald Trump and this implies that there will be lesser international prospects for the overseas aspirants. Alternate overseas destinations for higher studies such as Europe and Canada will now be considered by him, said Nair.

The dependency on visas will now be reduced by the Infosys to remain profitable and anxious software sector stakeholders will be traveling to the US to impress upon the lawmakers regarding their concerns.

Industry body NASSCOM has revealed that the IT outsourcing industry in India is worth 108 billion dollars that employ more than four million people. The proposed restrictions on the US visas would create much insecurity and create a scarcity of skilled workers for the US businesses.

The IT services industry in India generates more than 60 billion dollars from the US market alone by offering to engineer and IT services to top businesses in the US.

The US offers 85,000 H1-B visas annually and the majority of these are secured by the Indian firms that provide skilled workers to the US firms and bridge the skill gap in the US market. Applications far outnumber the allocated number of visas and the visas are allocated through a draw.

An analyst at Gartner, a technology research company DD Mishra has said that the IT firms in India will have to start looking at other options such as Asia-Pacific and start their businesses there instead of the US.