Infosys not to apply for H-1B visa for junior employees

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It’s not yet law in the United States, but the fear of impending legislation that may change basic hiring salary to as much as $130,000 annually for any recipient of an H-1B visa has forced India’s biggest IT services provider Infosys to change tactics on who to send to their most profitable overseas work area.

Infosys has decided not to apply for H-1B visa for junior employees, unidentified sources told The Economic Times.

“The company is not applying for visas for employees with under four years of experience. We are talking to clients about offshoring more work to India, and the work done by junior employees can be brought to India,” an Infosys executive told ET.

A second executive confirmed that the company had not raised visa requests for systems engineers and senior systems engineers, among the lowest rungs in the Infosys corporate ladder.

“There are job requirements in the US, but some customers have started asking that fewer H-1B employees be deployed onsite on their projects. We are trying to hire more onshore to deal with this issue,” a third Infosys executive said.

The company’s inability to apply for visas for junior employees is also creating another problem.

“One of the easiest ways to retain people when they expressed dissatisfaction was to say that we will begin their visa process. This can no longer be used. Managers are now trying to find different ways to keep people on board,” one of the executives quoted above said. He added that this was a problem that would be faced by the entire industry and not just Infosys.

Tata Consultancy Services said that it had operated in a self-imposed visa-constrained environment this year and had applied to get only about 15% of the visas for which it normally applies, reported the Economic Times.