TCS Plans 15,000 US Hires Despite Green Card Curbs

NEW DELHI-Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT services company, said on October 9 it would comply with any US government directive on the Permanent Labor Certification program (PERM), adding that the suspension was not expected to affect its workforce strategy or customer engagements.

In a stock exchange filing, TCS said its US workforce strategy was anchored in hiring local talent, supported by a robust campus recruitment model.

“We have built a significant local workforce across 31 offices and delivery centers throughout the country. As we had announced earlier, we intend to hire an additional 15,000 people in the US over the next five years to further augment our local workforce,” the company said.

TCS added that its limited use of the program meant it did not expect the suspension to disrupt its hiring plans or client work.

“Our PERM applications were in single digits in the last two years, and hence we do not expect the suspension of the program to impact our workforce strategy and customer engagements,” it said.

The statement followed the US Labor Department’s suspension of eight technology companies, including TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies, from the PERM programme amid investigations by the department’s Inspector General. The action also covers Cognizant, Capgemini, Microsoft and Adobe.

The suspension bars the companies from submitting new PERM applications and halts the processing of pending applications involving them. PERM is a key step in the process through which employers sponsor foreign workers for employment-based permanent residence in the United States.

Earlier, the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), India’s IT industry body, said the number of employees transitioning from H-1B visas to permanent residency through PERM was relatively limited.

Separately, Microsoft said the vast majority of its US employees were Americans. Of about 6,000 H-1B applications it submitted in the last fiscal year, 80 per cent were to extend or change the status of existing employees rather than hire new workers, the company said.

The remaining applications for new employees were for people already legally in the United States and accounted for only 1 per cent of Microsoft’s US workforce, it added. (IANS)