Hyderabad: The US govt’s suspension of PERM labour-certification processing for eight major technology companies is unlikely to disrupt the Indian IT sector immediately, but industry leaders say it could strengthen India’s ability to retain and attract high-end technology talent while accelerating the country’s global capability centre (GCC) expansion. PERM is a key stage in employer-sponsored green card applications that allows US companies to seek permanent residency for foreign workers.
Because of this caveat, it is not that they will move all those roles to India, if they cannot do a certain number of green cards or H-1Bs next year.
Pure development roles may move to India or other locations, but customer-facing, account management, customer success positions will need to remain in the US,” Pendyala said. Sidhant Rastogi, president of consulting and GCC enablement firm Zinnov, said some Indian professionals in the US may reassess their long-term plans, but any reversal of brain drain will depend on whether India offers comparable leadership roles, compensation and cutting-edge work. “What has fundamentally changed is the opportunity that India now offers,” Rastogi said, citing growth in AI, product engineering, platform development and global leadership roles. World Telugu Information Technology Council (WTITC) chairman Sundeep Kumar Makthala said while countries have the right to enforce immigration laws, technology depends on global talent and cross-border collaboration.
However, HYSEA president Flt Lt Bipin Chandra Pendyala felt the move would not dramatically alter business models. “Companies such as Microsoft, Cognizant, TCS or Adobe already have a pretty large presence in the US and India.