The US decision to suspend eight technology companies from the green card sponsorship programme could encourage more American technology work to move to India, even as the immediate impact on Indian IT services firms appears limited, industry executives and analysts said.
Vineet Nayar, founder-chairman and CEO of Sampark Foundation and former vice-chairman and CEO of HCL Technologies, said the restrictions on Indian professionals working in the US could have an unintended consequence.
“Trump may make it harder for Indian engineers to move to American work. The opportunity is to make American work move to Indian engineers,” Nayar said in a post on X.
He said that Indian technology companies could take on more advanced work, including product engineering, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence implementation and product development, rather than relying mainly on sending engineers to client locations in the US.
The US Department of Labour announced on October 8 that it was suspending Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro, HCLTech and Capgemini from the Permanent Labour Certification (PERM) programme, citing alleged misuse of employment-based immigration routes. The suspension blocks new and pending PERM applications for the affected companies.
PERM is a key step through which employers sponsor eligible foreign workers for permanent residency. The action does not automatically cancel existing H-1B visas, which allow skilled foreign professionals to work temporarily in the US.
The potential shift in technology work comes as Indian IT companies increasingly rely on teams based in India and employees hired locally in the US.
A report by the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said an estimated 91.7% of India's software and IT-enabled services exports were delivered from India, based on the Reserve Bank of India's worldwide delivery split. Applying that proportion to the US market suggests that most such exports are already delivered from India, although the estimate is not based on a US-specific delivery breakdown.
GTRI said the restrictions could encourage multinational companies to move more engineering work, global projects and specialised teams to their Indian centres, potentially supporting the growth of global capability centres (GCCs).
However, the scale of any shift remains uncertain.