H-1B visa row: US criticises Infosys, TCS, Cognizant for putting extra tickets into the lottery system
The IT majors in India are believed to have put extra tickets in the lottery system, which the Donald Trump-led US government is willing to change this process with a more merit-based system.
US Visa
New Delhi, April 24: The United States of America has accused the Indian IT giants Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Cognizant for illegally cornering the lion's share of H-1B visas. These companies are believed to have put extra tickets in the lottery system, which the Donald Trump-led US government is willing to change this process with a more merit-based system. US President Donald Trump's decision was not a huge surprise, given his election campaign pledge to put American jobs first.
An official of the Trump administration was quoted in a TOI report saying at a White House briefing last week that a small number of giant outsourcing firms flood the system with applications, which increases their chances of success in the lottery draw. Meanwhile, all the three Indian firms refused to comment on the US administration comment.
According to a transcript of the briefing posted on the White House website, a senior official was quoted by PTI saying, "You may know their names well, but like the top recipients of the H-1B visa are companies like Tata, Infosys, Cognizant they will apply for a very large number of visas, more than they get, by putting extra tickets in the lottery raffle, if you will, and then they'll get the lion's share of visas".
The official stated that contracting firms that are not skills employers, who oftentimes use workers for entry-level positions, capture the lion's share of H-1B visas, which is all a public record. "And those three companies are companies that have an average wage for H-1B visas between US $60,000 and US $65,000 (a year). By contrast, the median Silicon Valley software engineer's wage is probably around US $150,000," the official added.
"Only about 5 to 6 percent, depending on the year, of H-1B workers command the highest wage tier recognised by the Department of Labour, there being four wage tiers. And the highest wage tier, for instance, in 2015, was only 5 percent of H1B workers," the official was quoted by PTI.
The official said that workers are often brought in well below market rates to replace American workers which violate the principle of the programme, which is supposed to be a means for bringing in skilled labour."Instead, you're bringing in a lot of times workers who are actually less skilled and lower paid than the workers that they're replacing," he said.
In the last week, Trump signed an executive order for tightening the rules of the H-1B visa programme to stop its 'abuse' and ensure that the visas are given to the "most-skilled or highest paid" petitioners. This decision is believed to impact India's USD 150 billion IT industry.
Earlier, IT major Infosys in its statement on H-1B had said that the company is deeply committed to helping US clients leverage technology to transform their businesses, empower their employees in new ways, and become even more competitive. "To do this, we continue to invest in the local communities in which we operate, including hiring local American top talent, bringing education and training to our clients to shrink the skills gap in the US, and working with policy-makers to foster innovation within states and across the country", the statement in the TOI report stated.
For breaking news and live news updates, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Read more on Latest India News on India.com.