Tougher US visa norms hurting Indian IT firms

[ChromeFoundry]

Source: The Economic Times of India

8 Mar, 2011, 12.01AM IST

BANGALORE: Visa restrictions are beginning to hurt growth prospects of Indian tech firms with the number of rejections having doubled in the past few months. A recent visa abuse case filed by an Infosys employee in the US could trigger a bigger debate even as companies complain of increased fees, higher rejection rates, difficulties in getting interview appointments and excessive requests for evidence.

"Checks indicate that H-1B/L-1 visa rejection rates have doubled from 4% to 8% for larger companies. Rejection rate is even higher for smaller companies. A CEO of an Indian tech company indicated that they lost up to 1% Q-o-Q growth in the second half of calendar year 2010 due to visa issues," Nimish Joshi and Bhavtosh Vajpayee of CLSA said in a report last week.

The US government has accused Indian IT companies of using visas unfairly to send employees from India at a lower cost, impacting job creation in the US. The Congress passed a Border Security Bill in August 2010 that doubled H-1B visa fee to over $4,000 per visa, a move decried as protectionist by the Indian IT industry.


Read more: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/services/travel/visa-power/tougher-us-visa-norms-hurting-indian-it-firms/articleshow/7650744.cms

[christx30]

1. Indians...

want to come here to do the IT work that US workers won't do.

[rucky]

2. you forgot the :sarcasm: thingie

[virgogal]

3. I tnink most would recognize that as sarcasm.

[OhioChick]

4. Good...

This program should be halted.

U.S.: H-1B workers outnumber unemployed techies

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9133529/U.S._H_1B_workers_outnumber_unemployed_techies

Recession Rocks IT Profession

http://www.govinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=2066

[Boswell]

5. hopefully rejections will increase

[w4rma]

6. There should be no growth. There should only be shrinking. (nt)

[plumbob]

7. What a shame.

Nah

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. The most illogical statistics yet to come from this ridiculous arrangement.

Sometimes I feel like we're taking on so many Indians in this country because of our alliance to England. Somehow, we're taking on their guilt for their colonial abuses.

[amandabeech]

10. We're doing it because the employers are greedy and the Indians speak English,

although I have real trouble with their accents.

Sometimes I think that it is the Indians who try to giult-trip us into taking over the English role.

I say resist that.

We've done bad things outside our borders, but we have not messed in India.

[2Design]

9. good maybe they will hire IT who have been laid off since the 80's

to ship it to other countries

[Skittles]

11. OMG

:nopity: