US focus is on local jobs, not tech firms’ origins: TCS

Mumbai: India’s largest IT services company TCS feels that the US is unlikely to target tech companies based on their domicile and actions like last week’s decision to suspend a green card application programme are driven by local sensitivities around jobs.

TCS chief executive and managing director K Krithivasan said companies are “deeply ingrained” in the US’ technology ecosystem and provide an important service.

“I do not think the governments will really look at it from a domicile perspective. I think what the governments have been looking at is from an employment perspective,” Krithivasan told PTI in an interview at the company’s corporate headquarters here.

Sensitivities around local job creation may be leading governments to take actions like the one against eight companies, including TCS, Krithivasan said, stressing that last week’s decision has no material impact on the company.

TCS, which sends staff to the US when clients demand so, applied for only 10 or so green cards last year, he said, adding that overall H-1B visa applications were fewer than 300.

Many H-1B applications consisted of people already in the US, he said, making it clear that no fresh employee was sent to the country from India.

Asked about the mid-term polls in November, Krithivasan said TCS has a long-term strategy in the US, its biggest market by revenues, and the election outcome will not lead to any change in it.

TCS focuses on local hires, he said, adding that over half of the more than 30,000 people it employs in the US are locals.

On the company’s earlier promise to add another 15,000 people in the US over the next five years, chief operating officer Arathi Subramanian said TCS hires diverse talent that fulfils skill requirements, but nationality is not important. After the US suspended eight tech firms, including prominent Indian companies, from a key green card programme, Nasscom said immigration and skilled talent mobility are “two distinct issues” that should not be viewed through the same lens.