Over the past
decade, IBM hired frenetically in India, and cut jobs in the US in an effort to
be cost competitive with Indian IT services providers. Now, the Big Blue
appears to be changing track, goaded perhaps by the Obama administration's
social and tax pressures, and the US work visa restrictions.
However, other
global IT services companies like Ireland-registered Accenture and France-based
Capgemini are continuing to keep their hiring focus on India.
IBM's 'Jobs at IBM'
website currently lists about 6,750 jobs, of which nearly a third, 2,150, are
in the US. India follows way behind at a little over 700, and China is third
with about 650. More striking are the entry level positions. Of the total of
446 entry level positions open as on September 2, as many as 172, or nearly
40%, are in the US. In India, there are a mere five.
An employee of the
company in India said the internal job portal now shows certain IT positions
with 1-2 years' experience reserved for US citizens. "I can't recollect
such entry level positions earlier being reserved for US citizens," he
said.
When contacted, IBM
did not directly address %the matter, but issued the following statement:
"Managing resources and skills is an ongoing and critical component of our
business model. IBM continues to meet the changing requirements of its clients,
and to pioneer new, high value segments of the IT industry. To that end, IBM is
positioning itself to lead in growth areas such as cloud, analytics and
cognitive computing and investing in these priority areas. Investing in and
hiring talent from over.
US tech
entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa said he would not know %if the IBM
hiring trends were accurate, but said it would not surprise him. "IBM,
like other US companies, is surely under pressure from nativists to hire more
Americans. The noise is only getting louder. But it may be that IBM is trying
to balance its growth and that is what is behind such a strategy," he
said.
The years of
frenzied hiring has resulted in India now accounting for over a third of IBM's
4.3 lakh employees (these are estimates, given that IBM has stopped disclosing
its headcount by geography). In the US, the number has dropped from a peak of
1.53 lakh in 2000, to an estimated 88,000 now. B S Murthy, CEO of executive
search firm Leadership Capital, said IBM in India could now be depending more
on contract staffing, rather than have them on rolls. Contract staffing
involves bringing people in for short periods from other IT services providers
for specified projects. IBM's rivals Accenture and Capgemini, however, are
hiring in India far more than elsewhere. The Accenture website lists 10,700
jobs for India, ten times more than in the US, the next highest.
Capgemini has a
total of 4,460 jobs listed, of which half are in India. In the US it's 764 and
in home country France it is 363. Both these companies have their largest
employee base in India. In April, Capgemini announced that it crossed the
threshold of 50,000 employees in India; more than a third of its global
strength of 1.34 lakh. Accenture does not disclose geography numbers, but it is
estimated that about 90,000 of its 2.93 lakh employees are in India.
Source:
economictimes
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