HYDERABAD: Nasscom president R Chandrashekhar on Thursday expressed confidence that although protectionism has been a rising trend across economies, Indian IT industry will survive the challenge thanks to its strong fundamentals and talent store house.
“By putting restrictions on H1B visas, the US is in fact leading to job losses rather than creating new jobs for local people. Many decision makers in the US are not aware that just 20 per cent of H1B visas are issued to IT companies. They see 70 per cent of visas issued to Indians as visas issued to Indian IT companies,” said Chandrashekhar, speaking at Nasscom’s Global In-house Centre conclave in Hyderabad on Thursday.
According to him, the US is adopting technology at a fast pace and it needs highly skilled people. “With India being a storehouse of talent and the fundamentals of Indian IT sector being strong, we will pass these challenging times and grow.”Chandrashekhar said the US is losing about 21 million jobs every year due to digital transformation. On the other hand, it needs to create 23 million new jobs that require higher skills, for which Indians will be the best bet.
“Australia wants to review its visa policy and in the place of 457 visas it wants to introduce short term and long term visas. Right now the effect of Australia’s moves on Indian IT sector cannot be ascertained. We have to wait till April 2018, when a new regime comes in Australia” said Chandrashekhar.
Noting that Singapore has not made any changes in its visa issue process but effectively stopped issuing visas, Chandrashekhar said many IT companies which set up base in Singapore to serve Asean countries are now looking to shift their bases to other places such as Malaysia, Thailand and others.
“Although ‘uncertainty’ is the only thing which is ‘certain’ in these times, we believe that Indian IT sector has opportunities to rise over these challenging times,” Chandrashekhar added.