Infosys creates job opportunity for Americans

Infosys Technologies will hire more local talent in the US in a bid to overcome visa hurdles. It has already started hiring Americnas for its operations in that country.

Under a hiring plan started in April, 1,000 Americans will be taken on board, Nandita Gurjar, senior VP and group head of human resources at Infosys, told Financial Chronicle.

According to her, 72 Americans have already been recruited and 140 more offers are under way. The planned hiring could be completed by April next year.
“This lateral hiring and typically for people with four to five years of experience and domain knowledge of different technologies. They are intended to replace Indian staff on deputation to the US,’’ she said.

In the IT industry, that level of experience generally implies senior programmers, team leaders, senior architects and sales personnel. According to the company’s director, T V Mohandas Pai, Infosys does not plan to fill senior management positions in the US now, except a couple in sales. Asked if an American could be hired to head its North American operations, he said the company believed in having the “most capable person heading the best positions”.

The North America operations are at present headed by Ashok Vemuri, who also looks after the BFSI business, the company’s largest revenue garnering vertical.

Infosys has about 17,000 people working outside India. Of this, over 10,000 are in North America (most of them in the US), including 4,900
non-Indians. A thousand Indian staff are stationed in the US; the rest are in Europe, China and Australia. The total headcount at Infosys is 1,05,000.

The hiring of more Americans is part of the company’s strategy to have more non-Indians, who now account for 4.67 per cent of the employee strength. The company wants to take the figure to 15 per cent by 2012.

Infosys has no mandate as yet to hire locally in Europe in big numbers. But this could change when the economy is back on track and
demand increases in the region.

Infosys is also hiring in small numbers in Brazil (about 250 people initially), China, Germany, Mexico and the Philippines.

It is generally believed that local hiring costs Indian companies more. However, Gurjar said this was no longer true. “The US minimum wages law requires companies to pay a certain amount to employees, even to staff on deputation sent there on visa. There is not much difference in salaries paid to those on deputation and locals. So we would rather recruit locals who have more experience and domain expertise. This leads to greater productivity,’’ she explained.

Gurjar said that Infosys did not find it tough to attract people despite being an Indian company. However, she added, there was a lack of awareness about Indian IT firms.

The Bangalore-based company is investing in a branding campaign which includes working on Facebook, websites, and participating in and sponsoring conferences in the US.