Hyderabad: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) CEO K. Krithivasan said that the company is not looking to hire any new H-1B applicants. Speaking in an interview, he said that the company will look towards expanding their workforce with local manpower.
TCS is the biggest company in the United States in terms of hiring H-1B holders, with the company hiring 98,259 H-1B applicants between 2009 and 2025. In 2025 alone, TCS hired 5,505 H-1B applicants, ranking ahead of Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Google.
“We have enough people on H-1 already in the US. I don’t think we would be looking for adding to that count anytime now (sic),” Krithivasan said.
Speaking about renewal of existing H-1B visas, he said, “Our original plan was always to send people on H-1 with the intention of bringing them back and rotating them. So it continued to focus on bringing back at the end of the programmes, or rotating them with locals. And how much we would renew or whom we would renew is a call we will take at the appropriate time. We are looking to increase our local participation.”
“At the other geographies that we operate, like Latam (Latin America) or Middle East or APAC (Asia-Pacific), we operate with a very high percentage of local associates, and we are also moving to see how the new AI engagements are going to be done. They are going to require much closer collaborations with our clients, in terms of understanding the requirements and in terms of doing the build”, kirthivasan said.
“It is going to require a very diverse skillset, compared to pure engineering or technology skills alone. Taking all this into mind, we would continue to expand the local workforce in all of the geographies, particularly in the US and Europe”, Krithivasan added.
Industry experts are not only expecting a major downfall in H-1B applicants, but are also looking at a shift towards L-1 visa, which allows companies to carry intra-company transfer of employees from a foreign branch to a USA-based branch.
M. Dinesh, a consultancy manager in Hyderabad, said “With TCS CEO stating openly that they would not look at hiring new H-1B holders, it is just a matter of time before other major corporations like Amazon, Cognizant, Microsoft etc. follow suit. But since these MNCs have Indian branches, if they have any requirement for an on-site employee in the United States, they would look towards shifting them on-site through an L-1 visa instead of paying $1,00,000 through H-1B.”
Source – https://www.deccanchronicle.com/business/will-scout-local-talent-in-us-tcs-ceo-1909641