Will Laid-Off Techies Who Relocating To India Be Able To Find Work After A Wave Of Layoffs?

Will Laid-Off Techies Who Relocating To India Be Able To Find Work After A Wave Of Layoffs?

Some of the biggest and most coveted corporations in the world, like Amazon, Twitter, Microsoft, and Meta, have recently let go of thousands of people. This has not only generated concerns about employment security and stability, but it has also placed hundreds of people, particularly Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) who moved to other nations for the same occupations, in a precarious situation.

Numerous NRIs are now unemployed and without a sponsor for their work visa as a result of the large layoffs at tech companies and other companies. Many of them are forced to leave the US in order to find new employment.

H1-B visa circumstances

Even though they have lived and worked in the US for many years, many people with H-1B and L-1 visas who have been laid off now have to face the sobering prospect of having to leave. An H-1B employee from India does have the option to remain in the US and hunt for work if they get a notice of termination from their employer.

On an H1-B visa that is sponsored by their employer, Indian tech professionals work in the US. All of these individuals are now in a precarious situation due to the recent layoffs; if they do not find employment within 60 days of their termination, they will be forced to leave the country.

“A person in the US with a H status enjoys a 60-day grace period after their H-1B work ends while their I-94 is still valid. The H-1 is out of status but still legally present after the 60-day grace period during the validity of the I-94. According to Donald E. Smith, supervising attorney and shareholder of the northern California immigrant legal advisor Litwin & Smith, the H-1 beneficiary might stay to be legally located in the US despite the 60-day time frame for the term of the H-1B I-94 eligibility.

The prospects of Indian techies staying in the US are quite limited, according to Bhavna Udernani, CEO of the HR services firm Adhaan. “We are anticipating the migration of several laid-off Indian computer experts from the US,” she says, adding that this is due to the fact that H1-B visa holders only have a 60-day grace period before having to start looking for new employment.

Given that there are presently 7 lakh green card applicants in line for their visas, it will be incredibly difficult to find a new company to sponsor their VISA and complete the appropriate paperwork in such a short amount of time.

Indian tech workers laid off are searching for lucrative positions

Many of these specialists had incredibly profitable careers and would anticipate the same wherever they went, according to Sanjay Shetty, Director of Professional Search and Selection at Randstad, a global HR services company.

Indian professionals were among the highest paid in the US, and he predicted that they would expect high pay commensurate with their skill set.

According to Udernani, it is very possible that these experts will leave India and migrate to industrialized nations like Canada, Europe, or Singapore in order to maintain their quality of living rather than returning.

The majority of NRIs who have lost their employment in the US would rather stay abroad because they left India in search of a better lifestyle, better money, and an all-around higher standard of living. The CEO of Adhaan emphasized that as a result, they are more likely to relocate to other developed countries like Singapore, Canada, etc.

Is India really that devoid of opportunities for its laid off tech workers?

However, this does not imply that NRI techies would not find employment in India. The managing director of CIEL HR Services, Aditya Narayan, emphasizes that although some of these experts would not make as much money in India as they did in the US, they might have a competitive advantage over Indian rivals.

“Indian tech companies would eagerly recruit them if they were obliged to fly back home. They have a competitive advantage as a result of their expertise working for top tech companies. Although the income may not be as high as their US salaries, the cost of living in India is lower than it is in the US, so this is not a significant drawback, according to Narayan.

According to Shetty, this also suggests that the employment markets in India would become a little bit more competitive. In spite of the increased demand for digital skills in a youthful, highly populated nation like India, he claimed, the job market will undoubtedly be quite competitive as fresh professionals enter the workforce.

Which companies are hiring laid-off Indian techies?

According to experts, Big Data, Cloud, and AI/ML could be some of the industries where NRI techies might have a chance to succeed in India.

According to Shetty, they can close the gap in terms of full stack development, cloud and DevOps, data analytics, data visualization, and data science.

We project a need in full stack development, cloud computing, data analytics, data visualisation, and DevOps, the man stated. The exponential growth of the Indian IT and tech sector and the introduction of 5G technology would provide plenty of job prospects.

For newly arrived NRIs, consulting and freelancing appear to be realistic choices. They may even decide to work for themselves or work as consultants for SMEs and tech startups, according to Narayan.

NRIs’ abilities would help scale up Indian industries and verticals like AI/ML and big data, which are still in their infancy, according to Udernani.

“Whether they occurred in 2001 or 2008, the slowdowns in US productivity expansion equally facilitated India’s corporate growth. She goes on to say that India will see an increase in both new businesses and advisory possibilities.

Relocate to India

The idea of returning to India is one of the options now accessible to laid-off workers, but according to HR specialists, the workers largely do not intend to do so.

There are enough IT jobs in the US, according to Sriram Rajagopal, co-founder of the talent sourcing company Diamondpick, and workers aren’t now wanting to move back to India. He also noted that industries like retail and BFSI are still hiring.

According to Kamal Karanth, co-founder of the specialized employment company Xpheno, the demand for talent in the US has not reduced. According to Karanth, there is still a lack of qualified IT people, and this is true for startups, non-tech enterprises, and IT services and product companies.

“A shortage of skilled personnel has long plagued the tech industry. They were getting by, along with many other things, by employees continually to India and paying better wages there. The need for technology professionals hasn’t completely disappeared, forcing all of these men to hunt for work at home, the man claims.

Co-founder of TeamLease Services Rituparna Chakraborty claims that the employees are persons with specialised skill sets that are frequently always in demand and aren’t redundant.

“When things finally settle down, they’ll make a lot more sense. It’s just a way of holding out. I think people won’t want to respond too quickly. The first choice would be to look for another solution. They might make concessions about job responsibilities, pay, and migrate to gigs. People may take any measure to remain present, she argues, and that is the best course of action.

edited and proofread by nikita sharma