Tuesday, November 19, 2013

India's IT Exports Figures Highly Exaggerated

A 2005 study by US General Accounting Office (GAO) found that Indian government's figures for software and technology exports to the United States were 20 times higher than the US figures for import of the same from India.

U.S. General Accounting Office looked at the 2003 data showing the United States reported $420 million in unaffiliated imports of BPT (business, professional, and technical) services from India, while India reported approximately $8.7 billion in exports of affiliated and unaffiliated BPT services to the United States.

US-India IT Trade Discrepancy Source: GAO 
The GAO found at least five definitional and methodological factors that contribute to the difference between U.S. and Indian data on BPT services. First, India and the United States follow different practices in accounting for the earnings of temporary Indian workers residing in the United States. Second, India defines certain services, such as software embedded on computer hardware, differently than the United States. Third, India and the United States follow different practices for counting sales by India to U.S.-owned firms located outside of the United States. The United States follows International Monetary Fund standards for each of these factors. Fourth, BEA (Bureau of Economic Analysis) does not report country-specific data for particular types of services due to concerns about the quality of responses it receives from firms when they allocate their affiliated imports to detailed types of services. As a result, U.S. data on BPT services include only unaffiliated imports from India, while Indian data include both affiliated and unaffiliated exports. Fifth, other differences, such as identifying all services importers, may also contribute to the data gap.

In theory, India follows what is known as BPM 6 (MSITS) reporting method for software and information-enabled technology services (ITES) which counts sales to all multinationals, earning of overseas offices, salaries of non-immigrant overseas workers as India's exports. In practice, India violates it. BPM 6 allows the salaries of first year of migrant workers to be included in a country's service exports. India continuously and cumulatively adds all the earnings of its migrants to US in its software exports. If 50,000 Indians migrate on H1B visas each year, and they each earn $50,000 a year, that's a $2.5 billion addition to their exports each year. Cumulatively over 10 years, this would be $25 billion in exports year after year and growing.

There has neither been any acknowledgement nor any correction of the Indian government's methodology for reporting software and IT services exports since the GAO report was published in 2005. This raises serious questions about the accuracy of India's claims of $60 billion to $70 billion IT software and service exports being currently reported. If the 20X exaggeration still persists, the Indian IT exports could be as little as $3 billion to $4 billion today based on the US methodology.

Pakistan IT Exports BPM 5 Method Source: State Bank of Pakistan

Unlike the Reserve Bank of India's claimed BPM 6 methodology, the State Bank of Pakistan uses a much more conservative BPM 5 reporting system which does not include sales to multinationals located in Pakistan and earning of overseas offices and salaries of non-immigrant Pakistani overseas workers in Pakistan's exports figures. If the State Bank switched to BPM 6 method, Pakistan's software and IT exports of $294 million for 2012-2013 could easily become at least $5 billion.


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37 comments:

Anonymous said...

TCS as a corporate entity has revenues >10 billion.

Infosys Wipro >8 billion each

HCL Tech Tech Mahindra > 4 billion

etc etc

These are all companies which are listed on NASDA NYSE and other international bourses and whose ADRs are traded globally.

Their books are regularly audited by multiple auditors and large institutional investors.

You seem to be getting over excited about nothing.Sure some amount of fudging is possible but its unlikely to be on the scale you are claiming.

Riaz Haq said...

Most Indian IT companies r body shops supplying IT code coolies who use bulk of H1B visas in US

http://www.epi.org/blog/top-10-h1b-guestworker-offshore-outsourcing/

The H-1B ‘non-immigrant’ temporary foreign guest worker program is called a valuable tool for employers to attract and retain the “best and brightest” immigrants in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. Because employers may petition for permanent residence for their H-1B employees, the visa is sometimes described as a “bridge to immigration” that will keep the smartest foreign STEM workers in the U.S. permanently and thus improve the nation’s competitiveness. In part that’s how Senators Hatch, Rubio, Coons and Klobuchar explain their new bill – known as the “I-Squared Act” – that would more than quadruple the size of the H-1B program.

However, for the biggest users of the program, this view is false: In 2012, the 10 employers receiving the largest number of H-1B visas were all in the business of outsourcing and offshoring high-tech American jobs. Many of the jobs that went to H-1B workers should have instead gone to U.S. workers, but employers are not required to recruit them before applying for an H-1B, and can even replace their U.S. workers with H-1Bs. The top 10 H-1B employers were granted an astonishing 40,170 visas; nearly half the total annual quota. The table also shows each firm’s immigration yield: the ratio of permanent residence applications to new H-1B petitions for these companies. It is evidence of the companies’ intention to hire and keep their H-1B workers in the country permanently.

- See more at: http://www.epi.org/blog/top-10-h1b-guestworker-offshore-outsourcing/#sthash.t6qC68SP.dpuf

AM - India said...

As a previous poster pointed out, it is very easy to check if India's IT figures are as fudged as you seem to believe.

Just go to www.tcs.com and click on investors. You will find revenues published as per US GAAP standards (since TCS is listed in the US). The revenues for CY 12 are USD 10.1 bn of which c.52% are from North America i.e. that's USD 5.3 bn from one company. I presume Canada will be a small portion of that. You can do the same thing for the others are most Indian IT companies are listed in the US and therefore their financial statements are as per US GAAP.

Please try to post considered, well research opinions, rather than troll for something remotely negative on India and just post it. Your India obsession aside, you seem to be a reasonable albeit misguided fellow from your posts.

K. Zafar said...

RBI has started reporting Mode 3 (earnings of foreign offices) separately. And the share of Mode 2 (multinational sales is less than 0.5%). So the only significant difference comes from Mode 4 earnings (non-immigrant workers) which is around 15% of their total export figure. Even though India has a lot higher percentage of IT professionals amongst its working class, we can use the 15% number for Pakistan which will add on another $163 million or so bringing the exports to a little shy of $1.1 billion and total industry size to a little over $1.5 billion in FY13. I think the "rules of thumb" suggested by PSEB personal for the 2006 study were basically pulled out of thin air and weren't based on any empirical data so a size of $2.8 billion in FY08 might be a little exaggerated. Having said that, regardless of whether the industry size is 1.5 or 2.8 billion, a small fraction of it makes it into the country as export earnings and impacts the BoP which is a bad thing for us as a nation. Secondly, either way, the size of the industry is puny and we need to do a lot to grow it.

Anonymous said...

The treatment of services provided by temporary foreign workers in the
United States is likely a significant factor contributing to the difference
between U.S. and Indian data, according to Indian officials. Some Indian
officials estimated that in past years, approximately 40 percent of India’s
exports to the United States of services corresponding to BPT services
were delivered by temporary Indian workers in the United States. For
example, for 2002, RBI found that approximately 47 percent of India’s
global exports of computer services occurred through the on-site delivery
of services by temporary Indian workers

and in conclusion it say that

Some of this
difference in data can be attributed to varying definitions of BPT services,
but some also appears to be due to incomplete U.S. data. BEA has been
seeking various ways to improve the overall quality of U.S. services trade
data, but our test of whether they had identified BPT service importers
indicated that they were not identifying all U.S. importers of services

Hopewins said...

%^^RH: "If the 20X exaggeration still persists, the Indian IT exports could be as little as $3 billion to $4 billion today based on the US methodology."
-----

If this is true, and they are "faking" 60-70 billion$ of IT-exports, then how are they financing the actual current account deficit which would correspondingly be that much higher?



Riaz Haq said...

HWJ: " then how are they financing the actual current account deficit which would correspondingly be that much higher?"

History tells us that governments have fudged data for a long time...most recently in Greece. But eventually, the reality catches up and they get hurt when exposed.

In India's case, the biggest discrepancy is in terms of overseas Indian workers salaries being counted as IT and software services exports beyond what is permissible under BPM 6. Part of this money comes into India as remittances while the rest is probably is fudged.

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a news report that helps understand why some Indian IT companies overstate exports to claim tax exemptions:

Did IBM India export software in 2008-09? Though the company says it did, the claim may not run deep as telecom service companies have said that they did not give any leased lines to IBM India to enable the IT giant to export its software.

Software is generally exported through leased lines — dedicated cables — that transmit data and connect the seller to the buyer in different locations. The telecom service providers’ statement during the tax department’s probe is significant in light of the income tax department’s notice to IBM India last week for evading crores of rupees in taxes under an export promotion scheme.

In response to dna’s questionnaire, IBM India did not specifically respond to queries on leased lines and its foreign bank account. However, the company’s spokesperson said: “IBM does not agree with the tax department’s claims and will aggressively defend itself through the appropriate judicial process.”

IBM India not only under-reported revenue of Rs7,288 crore in 2008-09 to evade tax to the tune of Rs5,357 crore but it also showed sales in India as exports to claim tax exemption under the STPI scheme, according to the tax department. Under the Software Technology Park of India (STPI) scheme, IT companies are eligible for 100 per cent tax exemption on income generated from software exports as defined in section 10A and 10B of the I-T Act 1961 or under 10AA if they are located in a special economic zone (SEZ). IBM India has several units in STPIs and SEZs across the country that claim tax exemption on income from software exports.

IBM India claimed that it had exported software in 2008-09. But telecom companies, VSNL (Tata) and AT&T and others, denied providing leased line services to IBM India to export software from their eligible Software Technology Park of India or special economic zone locations, such as in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, etc. Rather, the companies gave it connection only within the country, according to the tax department’s notice.

In order to milk the export promotion scheme, IBM India also violated the Foreign Exchange Management Act and deceived the Reserve Bank of India. These and other violations came to light after the tax department initiated a thorough probe into the company’s affairs when IBM India failed to furnish software development agreements, software export forms (softex) despite several summons and show cause notices. The investigation reveals that thousands of invoices submitted by IBM India to STPI and SEZ authorities were different from the invoices referred to in its HSBC bank account in New York in which sale proceeds were credited. The department suspects these to be “bogus invoices”....


http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-ibm-india-exported-software-minus-lease-lines-1916031

Anonymous said...

This just shows the indian authorities and vigilant and independant and even mighty IBM is not beyond their reach.

This further indicates that the wholesale large scale fudging of data is probably not occuring.

Riaz Haq said...

Anon: "This further indicates that the wholesale large scale fudging of data is probably not occuring. "

It could also be just the tip of the iceberg.

Anonymous said...

wow what a breathtakingly ignorant article!

are u waging cyber jehad for your 72 hoories?

Riaz Haq said...

Anon: "are u waging cyber jehad for your 72 hoories?"

Going by your definitions, US GAO is also "breathtakingly ignorant" and "waging cyber jehad (against India) for..72 hoories"

Anonymous said...

KARACHI: The Statistics and Data Warehouse Department of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has initiated transition towards disseminating the balance of payments of Pakistan on the basis of methodology set out in the 6th edition of the IMF’s Balance of Payment and International Investment Position Manual (BPM6) beginning July 2013, a statement said on Friday.

BPM6 maintains the overall framework of the methodology of the previous (fifth) edition of the Manual (BPM5).

However, BPM6 deepens the harmonisation of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) external sector statistics recommendation with the update of the System of National Accounts and the international standards in the area of other macroeconomics statistics, it added.


http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-3-196289-SBP-implements-balance-of-payments-manual

Riaz Haq said...

Here's Yahoo Finance news on Pakistani start-up Convo getting $5 million from US VC Morgenthaler Ventures:

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Convo, a cloud-based collaboration service, today announced a $5 million Series-A investment from Morgenthaler Ventures. This financing is the company's first investment by an institutional venture capital firm. The funding will be used to evolve its offerings, introduce their service on more platforms, and accelerate user reach and growth.

Convo is a multi-platform service designed to allow teams to share and work together simply and naturally by combining discussions with messaging, images, docs, presentations and PDFs.

Since 2012, Convo has seen exceptionally high levels of engagement in their paying accounts, with an average monthly-active over daily-active ratio of 75%, which is noticeably higher than even the 30% of most social games.

Convo is available across all major platforms and has launched versions of its software for Windows, Mac, Web, iPhone, and Android.

"We built our company with slim resources and a small team, and therefore are excited about our prospects with Morgenthaler Ventures in our corner. They have helped companies at our stage and with our enterprise focus grow exponentially," said Faizan Buzdar, founder and CEO of Convo. "Our immediate priority is to use the new infusion of capital to continue delivering a service that meets the ease-of-use, reliability, and security demands of our customers."

Said Rebecca Lynn, Partner at Morgenthaler Ventures, "We have been amazed at the level of engagement we have seen from Convo's early customers, including many global brands. These organizations won't settle for inconsistent, light-weight solutions. Multinational organizations have selected Convo after putting them through a battery of security tests. There are collaboration services you use to run chit chat, and there are those that run your company. Convo is relied on for the latter."

"Looking across our portfolio, there is a common trait amongst our entrepreneurs, one of extraordinary tenacity and vision, which Faizan has in spades," said Alex Nigg, Venture Partner, Morgenthaler Ventures. "Faizan started his business in Pakistan, moved it to San Francisco, and overcame considerable odds to attract a list of loyal customers from around the world."

About Convo

Convo (www.convo.com) is designed to help any group of people working together to achieve great things. Convo allows creative and innovative teams to easily have the real-time conversations needed to advance a cutting-edge campaign, launch a new product or break the latest news story. Convo, an interactive workspace, is made for people who thrive on the creative process and who want to "get there first." The company (formerly Scrybe) has recently reincorporated in the United States and is headquartered in San Francisco with an offshore office in Pakistan.



http://finance.yahoo.com/news/convo-secures-series-funding-morgenthaler-113000482.html

Riaz Haq said...

Here's more from Express Tribune on Faizan Buzdar's Convo:

The funding will be used to evolve the company’s products, introduce its service on more platforms, and accelerate user reach and growth. Convo will also use the money to more than double its team in Pakistan, the company’s Director Marketing and Operations Shehryar Hydri told The Express Tribune.
The product is making big waves already and giving social enterprise giants, the likes of Yammer and Jive, a run for their money according to reviews published by top technology blogs; it has even taken away a chunk of their clientele.
The company’s market position couldn’t be determined because it didn’t disclose financial data. It did say however that over 10% of the Fortune-500 companies use their product, and they have 6,000 customers in more than 150 countries.
What really brought Convo to the limelight were the rave reviews it received from customers and leading technology blogs, such as TechCrunch and The Next Web, for its innovative features. In fact, this innovative product even got the attention of the United States President Barack Obama few months ago.
“Faizan,” Obama tweeted, “is a perfect example of why we [America] need immigration reform.”
Obama’s tweet, which praised Buzdar, was meant to gather support for an immigration bill that would allow non-US citizens into the country to help promote innovation in the country’s technology industry.
Buzdar, too, faced a host of immigration hurdles before getting his green card recently. “America needs immigration reform or it risks losing out on innovation,” he had told The Next Web prior to getting his resident permit.
Launched from Islamabad in 2005 as Scrybe and later renamed Convo, it is one of the few software product-based companies that originally started in Pakistan and gained a global footprint in terms of funding and customers.
Buzdar started his company from a five-member team working from a small room in the federal capital but he is determined to make it big, perhaps the biggest in the market it serves.
“Our customers say that Convo is the first app they check as soon as they wake up, even before email or Facebook. I want to see that behavior across many more organisations,” Buzdar said.


http://tribune.com.pk/story/631651/up-and-coming-pakistani-startup-raises-5m-from-venture-capitalist/

Riaz Haq said...

Here's Hindu BusinessLine report on cloud computing apps in Pakistan:

Emerging markets such as Pakistan, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia are adopting cloud-based applications at a faster rate than India, according to Doug Hughes, Vice-President, Product Management (JAPAC), Application Development, Oracle, the $35-billion US-based IT company.

In the last few years, India has moved to a dominant market from an emerging market. However, countries such as Pakistan and Malaysia are challenging India by deploying cloud rapidly. Starting with a low base, cloud-based application gives them the flexibility not to invest in hardware or software but to rent them on a monthly basis, he told Business Line.

However, adoption of cloud-based applications in India is faster than in China, he said without giving any data.

While small- and medium-size Indian companies are embracing cloud, there is hesitancy among large companies on security concerns. Bridging the gap between conventional cloud solutions and traditional company applications is emerging as a growing trend across segments, he said.

Managing consulting company Zinnov said cloud computing market in India is expected to reach $4.5 billion by 2015 with SMEs driving the growth.

The bigger the company, the bigger the decision making team. New customers are willing to consider cloud, but not the old ones. “We need to address too many questions raised by big companies especially on security. We need to find within big businesses a few champions who truly believe on cloud. For small business I do not need as they are the champions,” said Hughes. Oracle offers applications in a public, private or hybrid cloud, he said.

“With a large customer we start the discussion with the success in Australia. They will listen to it but say show me somebody who has done here. If it is not done here, it does not exist. I cannot say why clients here do not feel ready. The challenge is how to make them comfortable with cloud,” he said.

Companies need not deploy the entire suite of cloud-based solutions but pick up a HR or supply chain management application. Oracle is not going behind customers to change the entire spectrum of customer base from the very large company to the smallest – consider cloud as a solution, he said.


http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/info-tech/emerging-nations-adopt-cloud-apps-faster-says-oracle/article5375713.ece

Hopewins said...

Latest Data....
http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=31497

The excel file shows the following for FY 2013-14:

1) Software Exports = 70 Billion
2) Business/BPO Exports = 30 Billion
3) Remittances = 70 Billion$

Total Service Exports = 232 Billion $
----------------

Please comment.

Riaz Haq said...

In "Capital in the Twenty-First Century", French economist Thomas Piketty argues that the GDP growth rates of India and China are exaggerated.

Picketty writes as follows:

"Note, too, that the very high official growth figures for developing countries (especially India and China) over the past few decades are based almost exclusively on production statistics. If one tries to measure income growth by using household survey data, it is often quite difficult to identify the reported rates of macroeconomic growth: Indian and Chinese incomes are certainly increasing rapidly, but not as rapidly as one would infer from official growth statistics. This paradox-sometimes referred to as the "black hole" of growth-is obviously problematic. It may be due to the overestimation of the growth of output (there are many bureaucratic incentives for doing so), or perhaps the underestimation of income growth (household have their own flaws)), or most likely both. In particular, the missing income may be explained by the possibility that a disproportionate share of the growth in output has gone to the most highly remunerated individuals, whose incomes are not always captured in the tax data."

"In the case of India, it is possible to estimate (using tax return data) that the increase in the upper centile's share of national income explains between one-quarter and one-third of the "black hole" of growth between 1990 and 2000. "

http://books.google.com/books?id=J222AgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=thomas+piketty&hl=en&sa=X&ei=R7g0VMO3PMfjoASlvIGYDg&sqi=2&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=Indian&f=false

Riaz Haq said...

M. Ali Kemal and Ahmed Waqar Qasim, economists at Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), have published their research on estimates of the size of Pakistan's informal or underground economy.

Kemal and Qasim explore several published different approaches for sizing Pakistan's underground economy and settle on a combination of PSLM (Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement) consumption data and mis-invoicing of exports and imports to conclude that the country's "informal economy was 91% of the formal economy in 2007-08".


http://www.riazhaq.com/2012/11/pakistans-gdp-grossly-underestimated.html

Riaz Haq said...

Here's an excerpt from US Bureau of Economic Affairs (BEA) on source of differences between Indian exports and US imports of IT and related products and services:


The U.S. and Indian data on trade in business, professional, and technical (BPT) services are not directly comparable because of substantial definitional differences. When the U.S. and Indian data are adjusted for definitional differences, the difference in estimates either entirely disappears or is substantially reduced. Some major definitional differences are:

Indian workers in the United States. India’s data on trade in BPT services include services provided by Indian nationals who reside in the United States. BEA follows international standards for balance-of-payments accounting by excluding the compensation paid by U.S. firms to U.S. residents. Foreign workers who are in the United States for less than one year are considered to be foreign residents, and typically their earnings are included as compensation of employees (under “income” in the balance of payments accounts). Workers who are in the United States for more than one year are considered to be U.S. residents, and so their earnings are excluded from the balance of payments accounts. According to the GAO study, Indian officials acknowledged that temporary Indian workers in the U.S. have accounted for about 40 to 50 percent of their data on exports of BPT services.



b) Sales through affiliated companies. India’s data on services exports to North America include sales of services to affiliates of U.S. companies located in India or another foreign country, as well as sales by affiliates of Indian companies located in the United States to other U.S. residents. According to international standards, BEA excludes these sales from U.S. trade in services because the transactions did not occur between a U.S. resident and a non-resident. A U.S. company’s foreign affiliate that is located in India is an Indian resident, and so its transactions with other Indian residents should not be included in the balance of payments. Similarly, an Indian company’s affiliate in the United States is a U.S. resident, and so its transactions with other U.S. residents should not be included. According to the GAO study, an Indian official stated that inclusion of sales to affiliates of U.S. companies is “likely a significant factor” accounting for differences between U.S. and Indian data.



c) Sales of goods. India’s data on trade in BPT services include some sales of goods, such as prepackaged software and software embedded on computer hardware. The U.S. data on trade in these products are included in the goods trade data, not in the services trade data. According to the GAO study, Indian officials stated that embedded and prepackaged software account for about 10-15 percent of India’s estimate of exports of BPT services to the U.S.



d) Sales of technology-enabled services. India’s data on trade in BPT services include some technology-enabled services (such as some financial services). BEA includes these services in other services categories.



e) Intrafirm trade. Through 2006, U.S. data for trade in services are collected separately for cross-border trade between unaffiliated companies and for intrafirm (or affiliated) trade. The surveys that BEA uses to collect data on unaffiliated trade are detailed enough to allow BEA to identify trade in BPT services vis-à-vis India. Affiliated trade, however, is collected on separate surveys, and data for individual foreign countries that separately identify BPT services are unavailable. Therefore, reported BEA data for BPT trade with India cannot be directly compared with the Indian data, because BEA’s data for BPT services include only unaffiliated trade and India’s data on BPT services include both affiliated and unaffiliated trade.



http://www.bea.gov/faq/index.cfm?faq_id=324

Riaz Haq said...

On popular demand, I post a graph of the difference between the GDP data and the RBI Balance of Payments (BoP) data. This is referencing my posts on how the Q4 data has been ‘fudged’ and India is likely to have seen GDP contraction (in real terms, that is, accounting for inflation). Read: Has India Plunged Into Recession? GDP Data Fudge Reveals Details and India *HAS* Seen Negative GDP Growth, BoP Confirms Data Fudge
image
(Click for a larger picture)
As you can see the March 2012 quarter is very strange – Exports are larger in the MOSPI figure than the BoP figure tells us, and GDP imports are much smaller than BoP data.
But there’s an important takeaway.
Exports may have been understated in GDP figures in the first three quarters of this year, by about 65,000 cr. The discrepancy in Q4 is about 87,000 cr. So the difference, for the whole year, is a manageable 22,000 cr. You might be able to explain that by saying that they’ve stuffed the corrections into the last quarter. (I don’t believe that – they keep revising earlier quarter numbers with every GDP release – so if you update the past figures, you’re not allowed the excuse that you stuff corrections into the last quarter).
But Imports remain a mystery. Even if you account for stuffing (Imports have been overstated in the GDP in the Sep and Dec quarters) the difference for the full year, between the MOSPI GDP Data and the RBI BoP, is about 120,000 cr., which is a fairly large number to miss.
The difference in imports is so large that even if you rejig for past quarter misses, it will still result in much lower GDP growth. Reworking the numbers for a (-120,000 cr.) net export figure – negative because we imported more than we exported – we still get a nominal growth number of about 4.5%. Subtracting inflation of 7% and, like we’ve talked about, a GDP contraction. Even if we eke out positive growth for the year, It’s not looking good for the last quarter.
I’ve also been told that I’m being silly for believing any of the numbers in the GDP releases, since they are largely figments of people’s imagination. While I hope that is not true, it’s not a theory that can be written off, so please use appropriate pinches of salt.

http://capitalmind.in/2012/07/gdp-data-fudge-vs-bop-recent-differences/

Riaz Haq said...

Despite H-1B lottery, #India body shops dominate H-1B visa use http://www.computerworld.com/article/2954612/it-outsourcing/despite-h-1b-lottery-offshore-firms-dominate-visa-use.html … via @computerworld

Offshore outsourcing firms that do most of their work in India remain the largest users of the H-1B visa for computer-related jobs, seemingly unaffected by the odds of the visa lottery, according to new data.

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With the exception of a few tech firms -- notably Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Oracle -- the top 25 H-1B-using firms are either based in India or are U.S. firms running large offshore operations.

These firms include Tata Consultancy Services, the leading H-1B user with 7,149 approved visa petitions for last year, and Infosys, which ranked third on the list at just over 4,000 approved visas. Both were major contractors at Southern California Edison, where IT employees were fired as work was shifted to contractors.

HCL, one of the contractors at Disney Parks and Resorts, was approved for just over 900 visas. IT employees at Edison and Disney complained of training their visa-holding replacements prior to losing their jobs. (Disney later said it was canceling its recent IT outsourcing plans).

The IT services firms in the top 25 H-1B using firms accounted for approximately 43% of the 76,272 H-1B approvals in new computer-related jobs only in the U.S. government's fiscal year 2014, which ran from Oct. 1, 2013 to Sept. 30, 2014.

This is the first time we have data broken down by job type, via a federal Freedom of Information Act request. These totals will likely be lower than H-1B totals reported in prior years when Computerworld did not have breakdowns by employment categories. Visa requests for employment changes (as opposed to new employment) are not included in these totals.

The U.S. has been distributing its annual 85,000 H-1B allotment via a lottery because of high demand. This system works against many small U.S. tech firms that make up the bulk of the visa applicants. They must compete against large-volume IT services firms that submit multiple H-1B visa applications to improve their odds of winning the lottery, according to immigration experts.

New computer-related employment last federal fiscal year represented almost 64%, or two out of every three, such visas issued. Other job categories included engineering, medicine, science, law and, yes, modeling. (While rumors persist this is a large use of the H-1B program, in fact there were only 38 visas approved for fashion model new employment last fiscal year).

Computerworld requested but did not receive information about how many of these approvals were not subject to the H-1B cap, as well as a breakdown of approvals by gender and data about wages.

The tally of top H-1B users includes Computerworld analyses to combine various iterations of company names; there were, for example, 64 different versions of Cognizant Technology Solutions, including Cognizant Tech Solns US Corp, Cognizant Technology Solns US Corp and so on. The analysis also combines a company's different divisions and business units -- IBM Corp and IBM India, among others.

Riaz Haq said...

Commodities collapse cuts imports but also hurts #India's exports: Petroleum, gold jewelry, Iron ore, cotton, food http://cnb.cx/1h1hDvs

Slumping global commodity prices are typically seen as a boon for India, a country that relies heavily on oil imports to service its energy needs, but a closer look indicates it's not all good news.

That's because least 35 percent of India's exports come from commodities-linked products including refined petroleum, gold jewelry, gems, iron and steel. While typically lower input costs should burnish profits for these companies, prices of the final goods Indian manufacturers crank out have also slumped.

"India's miners are seeing sharp contraction in their earnings, agriculture commodity producers are seeing their earnings affected due to the weak price of agriculture products, and the gems/jewelry sector is undergoing a major downturn," said Taimur Baig, chief economist at Deutsche Bank.

The export value of refined fuels – which make up nearly one-fifth of total exports - is down 51 percent on-year this fiscal year, for example, amid falling prices and weak demand. Similarly, gold jewelry exports are down 20 percent on year, while iron and steel exports are down 30 percent, according to the bank.

Of India's top five export destinations – the U.S., United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, China and Saudi Arabia - exports to China have slowed the most, followed by Saudi Arabia.

While India is not nearly as export-oriented economy compared with many of its Asian neighbors, exports account for a sizable portion of its gross domestic product (GDP) - approximately 15 percent.


Thus, "benefits from lower prices and import costs are being offset by weakness in the domestic commodity sector," Baig said.
"It is clear that India's growth recovery is unlikely to be supported by a vigorous rebound in the external sector anytime soon. Therefore, it is evident that domestic demand would have to play a bigger role in supporting India's growth recovery in this cycle, mainly though a meaningful turnaround in capex and investment," he added.

Banking sector risks

Not only is the commodities slowdown weighing on India's exports, which tanked a whopping 20.7 percent on year in August, it also poses a threat to the country's banking sector.

"India's banks have sizable legacy exposure to stressed sectors such as steel, mining, and infrastructure; their recent loan growth has also been largely toward these sectors," said Baig.

"The commodity headwind is pushing up likelihood of further NPLs [non-performing loans], casting a shadow on the banking system," he said.

Read More Why it could get even worse for materials stocks

India's state-owned lenders are already struggling with deteriorating asset equality as a result of the economy's slowdown in recent years and stalling of large infrastructure projects.

Monetary policy challenge

The correction in commodity prices is also overstating disinflation in India, says Baig, posing a challenge for monetary policy.

"Pressure on the RBI [Reserve Bank of India] has risen considerably to ease policy interest rates. Non-commodity prices, however, are hardly in benign territory," Baig said.

"Education costs were up 6 percent on year through August and the same was with clothing. Thus the issue of how much room is available for the central bank to cut rates with a view to its medium term inflation objective of around 4 percent is being complicated by commodity price driven disinflation," he said.

The RBI is due to hold its next policy meeting on September 29, when it is expected to cut interest rates by 25 basis points to a four-year low of 7 percent. It has reduced its key policy rate a total of 75 basis points this year, standing pat at its last policy review in August.

Riaz Haq said...

Toys ‘R’ Us Brings Temporary H1B Workers From #India to U.S. to Move Jobs Overseas. . #outsourcing http://nyti.ms/1PNxnyi

When Congress designed temporary work visa programs, the idea was to bring in foreigners with specialized, hard-to-find skills who would help American companies grow, creating jobs to expand the economy. Now, though, some companies are bringing in workers on those visas to help move jobs out of the country.

For four weeks this spring, a young woman from India on a temporary visa sat elbow to elbow with an American accountant in a snug cubicle at the headquarters of Toys “R” Us here. The woman, an employee of a giant outsourcing company in India hired by Toys “R” Us, studied and recorded the accountant’s every keystroke, taking screen shots of her computer and detailed notes on how she issued payments for toys sold in the company’s megastores.

“She just pulled up a chair in front of my computer,” said the accountant, 49, who had worked for the company for more than 15 years. “She shadowed me everywhere, even to the ladies’ room.”

Continue reading the main story
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By late June, eight workers from the outsourcing company, Tata Consultancy Services, or TCS, had produced intricate manuals for the jobs of 67 people, mainly in accounting. They then returned to India to train TCS workers to take over and perform those jobs there. The Toys “R” Us employees in New Jersey, many of whom had been at the company more than a decade, were laid off.

A temporary visa program known as H-1B allows American employers to hire foreign professionals with college degrees and “highly specialized knowledge,” mainly in science and technology, to meet their needs for particular skills. Employers, according to the federal guidelines, must sign a declaration that the foreign workers “will not adversely affect the working conditions” of Americans or lower their wages.

In recent years, however, global outsourcing and consulting firms have obtained thousands of temporary visas to bring in foreign workers who have taken over jobs that had been held by American workers. The Labor Department has opened an investigation of possible visa violations by contractors at the Walt Disney Company and at Southern California Edison, where immigrants replaced Americans in jobs they were doing in this country. Four former workers at Disney have filed discrimination complaints against the company. The companies say they have complied with all applicable laws.

Riaz Haq said...

There is an increasing evidence of India’s growing stature and presence in the high-end value chain, where cost advantages may not be the only drivers to future growth,” Mr. Kumar added. India, once dubbed the back office of the world because of its abundance of cheap labor and tech proficiency, has suffered in recent years as call centers have been relocated back to the company’s headquarters and cloud computing has reduced firms’ need for offshore tech support.

-----------
Average annual salaries in India for those working at this level are $41,213 compared with $42,689 in China and $132,877 in the U.S. which was the fourth best-paying country for those in the IT field. The Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia rank lower than India for pay and the lowest paying of the 9,413 companies surveyed were in Thailand, Vietnam and Bulgaria. The survey was conducted by asking human resources managers about salary scales at each company.

The figures don’t take into account purchasing power parity – the principle that the same number of dollars can buy different amounts in different countries – but the findings could still mean tech companies are tempted to move more jobs to India.

“Lower-level roles are being moved to regions where talent is cheaper; the jobs that remain in Western Europe and the United States may be fewer in number but are more demanding and complex,” Rajesh Kumar, the chief executive of MyHiringClub.com said in a statement.

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2015/09/21/what-it-professionals-earn-around-the-world/

Riaz Haq said...

#India is pissed about the #US now charging more money for #H1B temp worker visas: https://news.vice.com/article/india-is-pissed-about-the-us-now-charging-more-money-for-guest-worker-visas … via @vicenews

The annual gold rush in Silicon Valley to fill out applications for guest worker visas began Friday, as the federal government began distributing some of the 85,000 H1B visas it is authorized to issue this year.

But the dash to grab visas is set against the backdrop of a political debate both within the United States and abroad about the regulations surrounding H1B visas, the government designation for visas designed for highly-skilled employees in "specialty occupations."

Just weeks ago, India filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over an increase in fees on H1B visasthat the US imposed on companies with workforces comprised of more than 50 percent foreign workers. A provision included in last year's federal spending bill tacked on a new $4,000 fee the H1B visas, which India argues is discriminatory to the country under its trade agreement with the US.

India's complaint comes as Congress has been mulling other reforms to the H1B program to address allegations that companies are using the visas to hire cheaper foreign workers to replace American workers. The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings earlier this year in which senators, including Ted Cruz and chairman Jeff Sessions, probed experts on whether US tech firms really needed more H1B visas to fill open positions, as they claim, and what protections might be put in place to ensure that American workers are being given preference for positions over foreign workers.

Related: The Los Angeles Unified School District Has Banned Immigration Raids on Its Campuses

"The intent of the program is to fill skills gaps in the US when American workers aren't available, but the reality is that the program has become a way for firms to create a business model that's about bringing workers who are cheaper into the US and to either substitute or directly replace Americans," said Ron Hira, a political science professor at Howard University, who testified at the hearing on February 25.

Hira said that foreign workers make anywhere from 20 percent to 40 percent less than their American counterparts within the program.

Two recent lawsuits accused companies, including Disney, HCL, and Cognizant, of firing Americans in order to hire H1B workers for less money. Leo Perrera, a former Disney employee who brought one of the suits, testified at the Judiciary hearing in February that "20 years of hard work, a bachelor's degree in information technology and an IT job for Disney were all over when my team along with hundreds of others were displaced by a less-skilled foreign workforce imported into our country using the H1B visa program."

The debate over whether the H1B program is hurting American workers rose to public consciousness amid the Republican primary debates earlier this year. Donald Trump said in one debate he supported expanding the H1B visas in one instance, but later said the system was "rampant with abuse." Ted Cruz has introduced a bill in the Senate that proposes some reforms to the programs, including minimum salary requirements for foreign workers, while Bernie Sanders has called for changes to the program. Hillary Clinton has, in the past, called for an expansion of the H1B program.

Cruz's bill is one of three bills proposing reforms to the H1B program currently in Congress. A bill proposed by Senator Chuck Grassley and Senator Dick Durbin would put in place a requirement that companies first seek American workers to fill open roles before applying to have them filled with foreign workers and would limit how many H1B workers a company could hire, while a proposal by Sessions and Senator Bill Nelson seeks to cut the number of H1B visas allocated each year.

Riaz Haq said...

#India's #startup bubble has already burst. #Modi #Achhedin http://cnnmon.ie/2dVGDWz via @CNNMoney

After a sustained funding frenzy, investor enthusiasm for the country's tech startups has fallen sharply this year. Weaker firms are laying off employees and some have closed up shop altogether.
Startup funding in the second quarter plummeted to $583 million from its recent peak of nearly $3 billion in late 2015, according to CB Insights. It's a sharp turnaround for a sector that attracted more than $8 billion last year.
"We've already felt the effects of what that bubble would be," said Arjun Malhotra, the co-founder of Indian startup incubator Investopad. "A lot of the companies that were high performing, they are crashing now."
The slowdown has occurred despite favorable conditions: The broader Indian economy is booming, and inflation is low. Global investors are on the hunt for the next Facebook (FB, Tech30) or Amazon (AMZN, Tech30).
With 1.3 billion citizens and a surplus of skilled IT workers, Indian startups proved irresistible to many investors. The success of homegrown e-commerce darlings Snapdeal and Flipkart, and ride-sharing app Ola, added credibility.
Yet there is a simple explanation for the reversal: Investors say India's tech sector experienced a classic bubble, similar to the one that rocked Silicon Valley when it burst in 1999.
"I think India is going through its first bubble," said Kashyap Deorah, a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur who now runs a startup in Delhi. "It is a bubble and it is normal."

Riaz Haq said...

A Whiff of Scandal at Cognizant Systems as #Indian IT Slows Down. #H1B #BodyShop #India #technology http://thewire.in/72446/whiff-scandal-cognizant-cts-technology-systems-indian-slows/ … via @thewire_in

New Delhi: Software services firm Cognizant, along with most of its peers in the broader Indian IT industry, hasn’t had a particularly great business year.

The New Jersey-based firm — which has four out of every five of its employees deployed in India — has downgraded its revenue forecast two times since January, starting from “between 10% and 14%” to “at-best 13%” and finally “around 8.5-9.5%”.

The company’s 2016 revenue forecast is not only sharply down from its growth last year (when it clocked a cool 15%), but is also its slowest pace of growth since 1997; which is when Cognizant as we know it today officially came into existence.

Adding to this is a potential scandal in the making. Two weeks ago, in an early morning Nasdaq notification, Cognizant announced that it had commenced an internal probe into whether “certain payments relating to facilities in India were made improperly and in possible violation of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act”.

The market’s reaction was swift: Cognizant’s shares closed down a little over 13% on the day of the stock exchange notification, wiping out nearly $4.5 billion off the company’s market value. Shareholder reaction was equally swift and similarly punishing, with a class-action lawsuit being filed against the company last week.

Cognizant, however, isn’t alone. Rivals Infosys and TCS have their own controversies they are grappling with — one stemming from a massive lawsuit over possible trade secret and IP violations and the other from a crisis of leadership.

Both Infosys and TCS have also slashed their own growth projections for this year. TCS in particular ended up backpedalling after announcing at first that there was nothing to worry, but then later expressing concern over demand from the BFSI sector, a massive vertical for most Indian IT companies.

“The stage is now set for what could be the worst second quarter performance in almost a decade. Revenues of the top five large cap companies are expected to grow by around 1.5% quarter on quarter. Consequently, Nasscom is likely to cut its 10-12% constant currency industry growth target as well, which it has been holding onto stubbornly,” the head of a large Mumbai-based brokerage, who declined to be identified, told The Wire.

What’s going wrong?

When financial headwinds have hit the IT industry in the past, CEOs trot out the usual suspects. Softening sectoral specific-demand, US elections, global protectionism, a particularly nasty dollar-rupee exchange rate and often whatever is the latest geo-economic event that could threaten business.

This time around, some of these factors are in play, although most of them haven’t had significant impact. BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) sector clients are indeed pulling back on discretionary spending. The run-up to the US election has had Congress focusing (mostly unsuccessfully) on plugging H1B visa loopholes. Brexit is turning out be a minor spoilsport.

“Cyclical and seasonal factors like that are always taken into account at the CFO level and are seen as something that passes eventually. More fundamentally though, what is happening right now is that IT firms are being hit at both ends by the general reducing of their traditional bread-and-butter business and an inability to capture meaningful digital business,” a senior executive of blue-chip IT firm, who declined to be identified, told The Wire.

Digital business growth

Multiple analysts and executives across the IT industry The Wire spoke to offered up numerous examples of this two-punch blow.

Riaz Haq said...

Are H-1B visas being "hijacked" to lower labor costs?
Author of the H-1B visa bill is "outraged" over corporations that he says have "hijacked" it to outsource American jobs and lower labor costs

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/are-h-1b-visas-being-hijacked-to-lower-labor-costs/

Former Rep. Bruce Morrison authored the H-1B visa bill in 1990 to allow American corporations to recruit the best foreign talent for emerging engineering and scientific jobs. But now Morrison says he is outraged by the way companies are abusing loopholes to outsource jobs to low-cost foreigners -- and sometimes even pressuring the displaced American workers to train their replacements. Morrison talks to Bill Whitaker for a report on the H-1B visa program to be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday, March 19 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Originally intended to help fill gaps in the high-tech workforce with highly skilled employees in situations where there aren’t enough Americans, the congressional framers of H-1B promised to protect U.S. jobs. Yet today, nearly every Silicon Valley tech company has brought in foreigners on H-1B visas and argue they can still use more because there are not enough Americans to fill those jobs. Morrison is mad. “There are a lot of qualified American workers, but companies will do better financially if they hire the foreigner worker,” he tells Whitaker. “I’m outraged. The H-1B has been hijacked as the main highway to bring people from abroad and displace American workers.”

One loophole H-1B companies are taking advantage of allows them to outsource jobs without even looking for Americans, if those jobs pay approximately $60,000 or higher. Many hi-tech jobs typically pay double that. Saving money on labor was never the bill’s intent. Says Morrison, “It’s really a travesty that should never have been allowed to happen.

Adding insult to this travesty is the practice of pressuring displaced employees to train their replacements, usually through a modest financial incentive. The practice was called “knowledge transfer” at Northeast Utilities, says Craig Diangelo, who along with some of his colleagues at the company were let go. He says they were replaced with Indian workers being paid half his salary with no benefits. “I didn’t get laid off for lack of work, I got laid off because somebody cheaper could do my job,” says Diangelo.

Diangelo and his fellow workers were also financially incentivized to remain at Northeast Utilities, now called Eversource, to train their replacements. During the process, he and his fellow staffers placed small American flags outside their offices as a quiet protest. A flag came down as each worker left the company after training a replacement. Diangelo’s flag came down last. “I went in and took the last picture. There were no more flags left,” he tells Whitaker. “You have a queasiness in your stomach...and you’re saying, ‘This can’t be possible. This didn’t happen.’”

Riaz Haq said...

Software engineers' salaries

Source: Glassdoor

https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Salaries/index.htm


Pakistan Avg Rs 500,0000 ( US$4,770) Min Rs 240 K ($2,290) Max $1.08 million ($10,302)

India Avg Rs. 450,000 ($6,875) Min Rs 327,000 ($4,125) Max Rs. 519,000 ($7,930)

China Avg RMB 150,000 ($21,760) Min 80,000 ($11,605) Max 246,000 ($35,687)

USA $95,105 Min $67,000 Max $132,000

UK British Pounds 37,469 ($46,786) Min 26,000 ($32,465) Max 61,000 ($76,168)

Canada C$72,000 ($53,853) Min C$51,000 ($38,146) Max C$95,000 ($71,057)

Germany Euro 54,000 ($58,144) Min 42,000 ($45,223) Max 70,000 ($75,372)

France Euro 42,000 ($45,223) Min 34,000 ($36,610) Max 55,000 ($59,221)

Australia A$83,968 ($63,963) Min 62,000 ($47,229) Max 116,000 ($88,384)

Israel Shekel 240,000 ($65,717) Min 126,000 ($34,501) Max 319,000 ($87,350)

Riaz Haq said...

Indian recruiters see surge in job seeking among tech workers

US visa ban and automation cuts demand in one-time booming employment sector

https://www.ft.com/content/f1035a74-41df-11e7-9d56-25f963e998b2


Indian recruitment companies are seeing a surge in job applications from laid-off IT services workers, as the sector rapidly automates.

The Indian IT sector employs more than 3 million, according to industry body Nasscom.

IT companies such as Infosys and Wipro grew rapidly over the past three decades by hiring huge numbers of Indian software engineers to perform software installation and maintenance work for global companies, at relatively low cost.


But recruiters say the companies now appear to be cutting staff at an increasing rate, as they focus their businesses on fast-growing, cutting-edge fields such as data analytics and connected devices, which require smaller numbers of more highly-skilled staff.

Cloud computing lets groups tap into generic platforms, easily creating company software without the need for outside consultants.

“Lay-offs happen every year, but this is different,” said Alka Dhingra, assistant general manager at Teamlease, a large Indian recruitment company. Its applications in recent months from jobhunters in IT services were at least 50 per cent higher than in recent years, she said.

A further shadow over domestic job creation has been cast by the prospect of tighter immigration rules in the US, by far the industry’s biggest market, aimed at pushing companies to hire locally instead of bringing in workers from India. Infosys this month promised to hire 10,000 workers in the US.

The worries about job cuts in the industry reflect global concerns about the potential for rapidly developing automation to create unemployment — a particular concern in India, where about 1m young people enter the workforce each month.

The number of people seeking IT services jobs on Naukri, India’s most popular jobs website, increased 23 per cent year-on-year between January and April, it said.

The Forum for Information Technology Employees, a workers’ group, is seeking to form the industry’s first union to fight what it says were illegal job terminations seen recently in the sector.

The companies themselves have downplayed the scale of headcount reduction.

“To say the need of people in the business will go down is wrong,” said Ravi Kumar S, deputy chief operating officer at Infosys. “Automation will take away jobs of the past but will create lots more jobs of the future.”

Mr Kumar said the job cuts at Infosys in recent months were part of an annual process where “underperformers” were released, though he declined to say how the number of such cuts compared with previous years.

Lay-offs have also hit senior staff, as companies see less need for managers to handle large teams, said Kris Lakshimanth, chairman of Headhunters India, who estimates job inquiries from such people have doubled since last year.

“Companies are trying to reskill the employees [in new fields], but where there is no option, they're having to let them go,” said Ratna Gupta, a director at ABC Consultants, another recruitment company. “Obviously the number of humans required is going to be less.”

Riaz Haq said...

#US #tech #layoffs: #Indian #H1B workers face painful exit from the US. Companies have not released India-specific numbers but #SiliconValley-based immigration attorney Swati Khandelwa says "it's hurt the Indian community particularly hard." #Amazon #Meta https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-63658535

Layoffs across the tech industry, including at firms like Twitter, Meta and Amazon, have affected a significant number of Indians working in the US who are on visas like the H-1B. California-based journalist Savita Patel speaks to workers who are facing the prospect of being forced to return to India if they don't find another job.

Surbhi Gupta, an Indian engineer working in the US since 2009, was surprised that she was laid off by Meta this month. "I was performing well at work," she says.

On 9 November, Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced it would cut 13% of its workforce - the first mass lay-offs in the firm's history which resulted in 11,000 employees losing their jobs.

"None of us slept that night," Ms Gupta says. "At 6am, I got the email. I couldn't access my computer, nor the office gym. It felt like a break-up."

Ms Gupta is likely to be a familiar face for Indians. Winner of the 2018 Miss Bharat-California contest, she was featured most recently in the Netflix show Indian Matchmaking.

Now she is among thousands of educated and skilled immigrant workers fired by US tech companies this month.

Most of them work in the US because of the HI-B visa. It's a non-immigrant visa that allows firms to employ foreigners for up to six years in positions for which they have been unable to find American employees.

It also allows holders to apply for permanent residency in the US and buy property in the country.

Ms Gupta says she worked very hard to build a life in the US for "over 15 years".

Her visa now hinges on finding her next job.

Worldwide, more than 120,000 tech workers have lost jobs as a result of cutbacks by US tech companies, according to the Layoffs.fyi website, which tracks tech job cuts.

While companies have not released India-specific numbers, San Jose-based immigration attorney Swati Khandelwa says "it's hurt the Indian community particularly hard."

"We saw an uptick in calls for consultation," she says. "Everybody is anxious, even those who have not been laid off fear that they might be [fired] later."

For Indian tech workers, the layoffs do not just mean seeking new employment but also finding employers who are willing help them continue with their work and pay for the associated legal costs.

"If a new employer is unable to transfer your visa petition in 60 days, the remedy is for people to leave [the US] and re-enter for work after the paperwork is complete," Ms Khandelwal says.

"But the practical aspect is that people will get stuck in India as there are not many visa stamping appointments available in consulates," she says.

Wait times for a visa appointment at US consulates in India have reached 800 days in some cases.

This is why the layoffs have come as an unwelcome surprise for Indian workers.

Sowmya Iyer, a lead product designer at the ride-sharing app Lyft, says she was part of a team that "had internally taken steps to maintain the fiscal health of the company".

But Ms Iyer found herself among hundreds who were laid off at the company this month. "We had not expected it to hit us," she says.

The mass layoffs feel like a "tech pandemic," she explains. "Both my friend and his wife lost their jobs on the same day. Everyone is in the same boat - reaching out, exchanging condolences."

Riaz Haq said...

An Indian-origin Google employee lost job after 11 years of service.
The Google employee says it is difficult to express the pain after layoff news.
The H1B visa holders need to leave the country after 60 days if they job.

https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/indian-google-employee-with-h1b-visa-lost-job-after-11-years-of-service-says-countdown-begins-to-leave-us-2327310-2023-01-27

Google laid off thousands of employees and the process was not as smooth considering many were locked out of their systems without any notice. While the news of layoff is disheartening for many, the most impacted ones are the employees who got the job on an H1B visa. An Indian-origin employee with an H1B visa who worked at Google for more than 11 years also lost his job and found out about layoff news out of nowhere.

His wife also got locked out of the system and discovered in the morning that her access to any internal resources on the laptop was blocked. He penned down an emotional note on LinkedIn about his good and bad experiences at Google. He wrote that they were in disbelief after finding about the job they lost at the biggest tech company, even after giving many years to the company.

“Two out of the 12,000 Googlers were staring at each other in disbelief in that room while our 2-year-old daughter slept peacefully not knowing (thankfully so) what just hit her family. It’s hard to explain what this feels like, especially when you’ve spent a third of your life at a place that’s given you so much and more that it becomes an integral part of your identity. I spent 11.5 amazing years at Google - staying loyal and committed to its mission and believing in its “do no evil” motto,” he said on LinkedIn.


The laid-off Google employee with an H1B visa also expressed his pain of leaving the country after about two months if he doesn’t get a job in the US, where he is currently living. “The dreaded H1b countdown has begun and I’m starting to look for roles,” he said.


For those who are unaware, H1B visa holders or we can say immigrants, who get a job in the US, are not allowed to stay back in the country for more than 60 days if they lose a job. The H1B visa workers will have to find a new job in about 60 days or they will have to leave the country. The visas are typically issued for three years, and they can get extended depending on the employment.

Google did fire as many as 12,000 employees across globe, but the company has also promised to offer severance pay to the affected workers. The laid off Google employees will get 16 weeks of salary, two weeks for every additional year at Google, and at least 16 weeks of GSU vesting. Google will also pay 2022 bonuses and remaining vacation time. The sacked employees will also be entitled to receive six months of healthcare, job placement services as well as immigration support.

Riaz Haq said...

India has no "software exports". India's forex tech earnings come from tech services provided to foreign firms by H1B type work visa workers on the payrolls of Indian body shops like Infosys, TCS, Wipro etc.

Glassdoor, a company that reviews employers, calls all of them body shops.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Infosys-RVW36839425.htm


https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Wipro-RVW23275846.htm

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Tata-Consultancy-Services-RVW2307652.htm

Riaz Haq said...

India's Infosys tumbles 15% on downbeat revenue outlook

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/indias-infosys-tumbles-15-on-downbeat-revenue-outlook


BENGALURU, April 17 (Reuters) - Infosys Ltd INFY.NS shares slumped nearly 15% on Monday and dragged stocks of peers, after the IT services exporter's dismal revenue outlook highlighted the impact of banking turmoil in major markets, the United States and Europe.

Infosys' outlook followed a disappointing quarterly report from larger rival Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS, highlighting worries for the sector which earns more than 25% of its revenue from just the U.S. and European banking, financial, services and insurance sector.

The collapse of two mid-sized U.S. lenders in March had left the financial ecosystem shaken and driven an extraordinary government effort to reassure depositors and backstop the system.

Infosys saw its biggest intraday percentage drop since October 2019, and dragged other IT stocks, with the Nifty IT index .NIFTYIT dropping as much as 7.6%.

India's second-largest IT services firm on Thursday said it expects revenue growth of 4%-7% for the fiscal year ending March 2024, well below analysts' expectations of 10.7% growth, as clients deferred spending due to growing fears of a recession. The previous slowest growth was a 5.8% increase in fiscal 2018.

"Given the uncertain environment in the near term, growth can be back ended for Infosys, in our view," PhillipCapital said in a note.

The Bengaluru-based company's net profit of 61.28 billion rupees ($748.21 million) in the January-March quarter also missed analysts' expectations of 66.24 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv IBES.

Riaz Haq said...

In the high-stakes race for supremacy in the burgeoning field of generative AI, India’s technology ecosystem is facing an uphill battle to catch up to global leaders. Despite being home to one of the world’s largest startup ecosystems, the South Asian economy has yet to make a material impact in the rapidly advancing AI arena.


https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/03/where-is-india-in-the-generative-ai-race/


No homegrown Indian contenders have emerged to challenge the dominance of large language model titans such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Ventures–backed Anthropic, or Google’s Bard.

“While there are over 1500 AI-based startups in India with over $4 billion of funding, India is still losing the AI innovation battle,” say analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein.


To their credit, many of India’s major startups are using machine learning to enhance aspects of their business operations. For instance, e-commerce giant Flipkart uses machine learning to refine customer shopping experiences, while Razorpay utilizes AI to combat payment fraud. Unicorn edtech Vedantu recently integrated AI into its live classes, making them more accessible and affordable.

Industry insiders attribute India’s dearth of AI-first startups in part to a skills gap among the nation’s workforce. Now the advent of generative AI could displace many service jobs, analysts warn.

“Among its over 5 million employees, IT in India still has a high mix of low-end employees like BPO or system maintenance. While AI isn’t at the level of causing disruptions, the systems are improving rapidly,” Bernstein analysts said.

Dev Khare, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners India, recently assessed the disruptive potential of AI and warned that jobs and processes in industries such as market research, content production, legal analysis, financial analysis, and various IT services jobs could be impacted.


However, for India, this disruption also presents an opportunity. A rapid gain in agriculture sector, which employs over 40% of the country’s workforce, is challenging, and similarly automation in the manufacturing industry may be unnecessary due to the abundant and affordable labor force.

Riaz Haq said...

In the high-stakes race for supremacy in the burgeoning field of generative AI, India’s technology ecosystem is facing an uphill battle to catch up to global leaders. Despite being home to one of the world’s largest startup ecosystems, the South Asian economy has yet to make a material impact in the rapidly advancing AI arena.


https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/03/where-is-india-in-the-generative-ai-race/


With timely upskilling and resource optimization, the services sector stands to benefit the most. Indian consultancy giants are already recognizing it. Infosys, for example, revealed last month that it is working on several generative AI projects to address specific aspects of clients’ businesses. TCS, on the other hand, is exploring cross-industry solutions to automate code generation, content creation, copywriting, and marketing.

In response to this landscape, New Delhi has declared that India will not regulate the growth of AI, taking a different approach from many other countries.

“AI is a kinetic enabler of the digital economy and innovation ecosystem. Government is harnessing the potential of AI to provide personalized and interactive citizen-centric services through digital public platforms,” India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT said last month.


Glimmer of hope
With the more established segment of India’s startup ecosystem staying muted in the generative AI race, young firms are stepping up to the occasion.


Startups like Gan, which enables businesses to repurpose videos at scale; TrueFoundry, which assists in building ChatGPT with proprietary data; and Cube, which facilitates AI-powered customer support on social media, are among those leading the charge.

The surge of interest has prompted nearly all venture funds in India to develop investment strategies in the emerging space.

Anandamoy Roychowdhary, partner at Surge, Sequoia India & Southeast Asia, pushed back that Indian startups have just started to explore applications around generative AI, saying several have been working on this space for many years.

“What cannot be denied though is the spectacular pace of projects and startup creation post the launch of ChatGPT. The Sequoia India and SEA team have been early to this trend, having partnered with 7 to 8 AI companies across earlier Surge cohorts,” he told TechCrunch.

Sequoia India and SEA is evaluating at least five firms in this space each week, he said.

Accel, another high-profile venture firm that has been operating in India for over a decade, said Wednesday that AI is one of the two main themes across the new cohort of its early-stage venture program.

However, some founders expressed concerns that these AI startups are unlikely to focus on creating their own large language models due to the lack of funding and conviction from investors to support such high compute and other infrastructure expenses.

An investor, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, cautioned that the current frenzy around AI deals somewhat echoes aspects of the crypto craze in 2021.


“Everyone wants to do genAI but no one knows how/what to do. This is the crypto arms race all over again,” the person said. “I doubt most Indian VCs ever really dug deep and understood crypto, because otherwise they wouldn’t have made so many utterly crap investments.”