India, the country who is chastised constantly for taking tech jobs from America, has several large companies announcing that they are going to be hiring workers foreign to India.
HCL Technologies Ltd. intends to hire 10,000 new employees (12.4% of its workforce) from the U.S. and Europe by 2015. Infosys Ltd., another India based company, said it will be hiring an additional 1,500 U.S. workers. The trend of these companies thus far has been servicing the U.S. and Europe, but with a larger global economy there is a need or new larger marketing plans, sales systems, and consulting services.
Siddharth Pai, managing director at TPI, states this policy is an attempt to “reduce criticism on taking jobs away” from countries like America as well as allowing these Indian companies to adapt based on “a natural need to globalize their operations as they increase in size”.
An example of the criticism placed on the new Indian workforce, which has been a major resource for outsourcing used by American companies, has been a new series of fees amount to $2,000 per skilled worker for visas passed by the U.S. Senate in 2010.
One of the bigger challenges faced by these companies is that in developed countries, they are able to sell services at a higher price but the price of labor is also higher….often occurring with a revenue to cost ratio that is less than that in India where labor is cheap. Thus they are able to expand their business but face lower profit margins, so the question that has to be asked: is it worth it? I believe so, as long as they are profitable and continue to show promises of future growth.