Infosys on Wednesday said the suspension of H1-B visas by the US does not make "logical sense", even though the move is unlikely to impact the IT services major as it has been investing in ramping up local hiring in the country.
"On the H1-B visa, obviously it doesn't really make any logical sense...various independent studies have clearly demonstrated the value that Indian IT service providers bring to the US economy and how they make the American companies very competitive. Having said that, in the short-term, we don't see any impact," Infosys COO UB Pravin Rao said in a post-earnings conference.
He added that there has been zero travel due to travel restrictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore, till December-end, the move by the US administration is unlikely to make any difference.
"From Infosys' perspective, our focus on localisation has really helped us. Today more than 60 per cent of our employees are visa independent. This we started about two, two-and-a-half years back and since we made the announcement in May of 2017, we have recruited more than 13,000 US nationals.
"So from our perspective, we are entirely de-risked and even in the medium to long term, we don't see an impact, we''re fairly comfortable," Rao said.
Infosys, which had over 2.39 lakh employees at the end of June 2020 quarter, saw 61.5 per cent of its revenues come from the North American market.
Europe accounted for 24 per cent of the USD 3.1 billion revenue in June quarter, while India and Rest of the World geographies contributed 2.9 per cent and 11.6 per cent of the quarter's revenue, respectively.
Last month, US President Donald Trump had signed a proclamation to suspend issuing of H-1B visas -- popular among Indian IT professionals - along with other foreign work visas for the rest of the year, aimed at helping millions of Americans who have lost their jobs due to the current economic crisis.
Larger rival Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) had called the move by the US government "unfortunate and unfair".
TCS - in its FY20 annual report - had said it has hired 20,000 people in the US in the last five years.
Industry body Nasscom had warned that this could possibly force more work to be performed offshore since local talent is not available in the country.
Comments
0 comment