TCS unaffected by H-1B visa restrictions

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest exporter of software services, said on Monday that the restrictions on H-1B visa norms has had no impact so far.

“The restrictions on H-1B visa employees has not affected us so far,” said chief operating officer and executive director N Chandrasekaran. When asked if it would impact his businesses in the future, he said, “We will continue to monitor the developments on this issue.”

Industry analysts also believe that it is unlikely to have any major impact. “The Indian IT sector has indeed seen minimal impact due to H-1B restrictions. It is difficult to assess what the impact would be in the future,” said Apurva Shah, head of research for Prabhudas Lilladher, a Mumbai-based brokerage firm. “In any case, if at all there is an impact, it would be minimal, because Indian companies usually have more H-1B visa holders than required,” he added.

In the first week of March, TCS had announced that it would ask one per cent of its workforce to leave on the basis of non-performance. Commenting on that, Chandrasekaran added, “We do that every year. We have appraisals twice a year, and on the basis of their performance, we offer help to outplace them.”

He said his international clients are looking at offshoring more work to cut costs. TCS has made offers to around 24,000 trainees for the coming year. “We will be honouring all these offers,” he said. “Our employee utilisation rates have gone up to 79 per cent. We are comfortable to maintain it at that level,” he added.

TCS has also seen discretionary spending by its clients under stress. “Discretionary spending has been under stress. There will be more clarity on this from our clients in the coming quarters, hopefully by the end of the first quarter,” he said.