In just the past month there have been nearly 50,000 job cuts across the technology sector. A string of companies including global tech giants have been slashing jobs one after the other. Google owned by parent company alphabet has announced it is going to lay off 12,000 people, Microsoft is cutting about 10,000 jobs which is almost 5 percent of its workforce.
Amazon plans to lay off more than 18,000 employees primarily in its human resources and stores divisions. Meta the parent company of Facebook, laid off 11,000 people which is about 13 percent of its workforce. While the Twitter has let go about 7,500 of its employees since the social media platform was acquired by Elon Musk. As a result of the massive layoffs thousands of Indian IT Professionals in the US are without jobs, now struggling to find new employment within the stipulated period under their work visas following the termination of their employment to stay in the country. As per reports, nearly 2 lakh IT professionals have been laid off since November last year, a significant 30 to 40 percent of them are Indians.
As most of the tech giant’s leadership have already stated that there are macro-economic concerns particularly because of the inflation, there is upcoming fears of recession or slow down which is going to impact the economy. For last few years during the covid time, the digital economy boomed and there was much hiring however this drastic and immediate slowdown is impacting their businesses so all these companies are tightening their bills to be prepared to tackle this recession and slowdowns.
It’s going to be very difficult at a personal level for themselves and their families no doubt. Just to give some more factual perspective 4,000 H1B visas have been granted by the Americans total. The question is obviously that there is a humanitarian problem and there is also a problem in the domestic politics of India because there will be constituencies on behalf of these families, these groups, people affected, they are Indian citizens. What are we going to do about it? That is a big question and I will say that the government of India will have to trade very carefully on this because at the end of the day this is an issue of sovereignty. But we cannot just brush this issue under the carpet because not because of domestic politics alone in India but also because of her overall ties with the US.
If there is a full spectrum relationship, this issue of movement of people unfettered on both sides has to be addressed.
Crisis can become an opportunity, obviously we were the most sanctioned country after the nuclear tests of 1974 and 1998 and we took our Rocket Science and Space technology as well as missile capability to greater heights so that’s very much possible. We have negotiated the migration and mobility partnership in the virtual summit between our two prime ministers with the UK.
3,000 Indian skilled professionals can go to the UK every year without labour market tax but there is always a quid pro quo. We have to tell American friends that there are mutual dependencies. What are the mutual dependencies between the US and India? India has cards because the IT industry the dependence on India is a single industry dependency. It was 40 to 60 billion dollars of revenue, for the 50 billion dollars in 2020 for our Indian IT companies. Today it could be 60 billion US dollars.
It is a single industry dependency that gives India many cards to work with, after all there are 50 billion dollars being earned by Indian companies. Now that by itself also is a leverage that the US has, because it’s a significant chunk of our trade. Our trade was 113 billion US Dollars now half of that is IT. 1,000 US companies have set up shop in India employing 1 million Indians so these are leverages that the US has, so therefore they are there when there is a mutual leverage that becomes the basis for a proper negotiation leading to a solution. There are different interests because everybody is looking for jobs, it’s not about the development of India. It’s about your livelihood so that’s not a solution. This is a reverse brain drain, particularly would be helpful for this type of a talent, it might not be helpful for new graduates.
However last year, there were almost 50 plus unicorns born and many of them caters for the market in India. Lot of this innovations, the digitization of the India is huge, so definitely India will have appetite to absorb this talent and it would be a big benefit for India.
Let’s see for how long this crisis continues. We hope that the disruptions in the lives of these Indians who’ve been impacted does not last for that long but in case they have to come back to India, the Indian market should be ready to absorb them. Their talent should be channelized in a way that benefits them at an individual level and the country as well in taking the Indian IT sector to newer highs.
(The author is an Advocate by Profession)
