Reverse Brain-Drain: U.S.-Based Indian Tech Workers Go Home
Pacific News Service, News Feature, Raj Jayadev, Posted: Jul 30, 2003
Editor's Note: Silicon Valley, the nation's recession-stricken high tech capital is seeing a new phenomenon: Indian IT workers are leaving for jobs "back home."
In a reversal of fortune, Silicon Valley, which drew thousands of Indian tech workers in the 1990s, may be turning from hi-tech epicenter to hiring hall for developing information technology (IT) industries in India.
On a day in late July in Santa Clara, Calif., the heart of Silicon Valley, some 2,000 tech workers of Indian origin jockeyed for positions and anxiously handed resumes to recruiters from American companies starting operations in India. Industry lions such as Intel, Microsoft and National Semiconductor Company topped the list of the 28 employers participating in "Career Factory 2003," hosted by Siliconindia magazine, which is sponsoring these job fairs across the country.
Already, companies like Oracle have started what some are calling "reverse brain-drain." Ten percent of the 4,000 new positions in Oracle's expanded India location are filled by Indians formerly based in the United States, according to the Mumbai news site rediff.com.
The cover of the brochure for Career Factory shows a road sign reading, "India Is Hiring." Every pitch about relocating to India is punctuated with the sentimental phrase, "back home." But economics rather than sentiment brought most of the people to the job fair.
"Life here is not stable, nothing is certain, and even those working may get laid off at any moment," said 26-year-old Jinal Shah. A recent graduate from Arizona State University's Electrical Engineering masters program, he has been unable to find work.
Shah came to the United States from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, as a student hoping to work here for at least five years before considering a return home. But now relatives in India tell him that employers are hiring straight from Indian campuses.
"No one here wants to hire freshies anymore," he said. Freshies are recent engineering graduates, and the Career Factory is filled with them. Shah stood in the corner of the Hilton lobby looking a bit overwhelmed. Two thousand anxious and ambitious techies and 30 potential employers did not make for a good ratio. Everyone saw the 500 resumes on top of the recruiter's desk and battled to be number 501.
Kumar, a middle aged man originally from Tamil Nadu, came here on a H1-B visa -- a temporary work visa granted for specialized fields -- two years ago. Though he is currently employed, he is nervous about possible layoffs. "You have to worry all the time. I came here to work. If I am not working, why should I stay in the U.S.?"
For this father of a 1-year-old daughter, India has advantages for a young family that San Jose does not. "Here we are alone, so I have to set up things like day care myself, but in India we have relatives we can call on."
Workers like Kumar are exactly what Sonia Mathai, recruiter for Synopsys, is looking for. The company is expanding its Bangalore office and could use American-trained workers interested in returning to India. The jobs she is hiring for -- physical design engineer, senior applications engineer, R&D engineer -- pay a third of what they command in the United States, though of course the cost of living is lower in India.
Though she was bombarded with questions, Mathai said few were about income. People were more worried about H1-B visas expiring, or said they do not see any upward mobility here. "Everyone here seems title-savvy. They don't want to know what the job pays, they want to know what they will be called."
The Indian IT industry itself is seeking respect, too. American companies have been outsourcing to India for some time, but the jobs have mainly been support positions -- call-center operators answering confused American costumers' questions about their credit cards, or code writers doing software assembly work. Until now, India has only been seen as a cost-cutting, cheap labor pool for what Siliconindia called the "less desirable" jobs of the U.S.-based IT industry. "If India is to become a software powerhouse, it is important that IT work in India include core software product development," Siliconindia's Web site reads. Such jobs were the ones being listed at the Career Fair.
Some industry leaders in the Valley see the reverse brain-drain as a temporary phenomenon prompted more by the growing number of unemployed H1-Bs rather than greener pastures in India. Raj Desai, executive director of The Indus Entrepeneurs, a network of mostly Indian American professionals and entrepreneurs, said that despite anecdotal stories of Indians going back, Silicon Valley remains the international tech mecca.
"Of course with a 9 percent unemployment rate people are exploring options, but everyone serious in this field knows we are just going through a cycle. Silicon Valley is absolutely going to come back," Desai predicted.
But already, other countries are cashing in on hard times in the Valley. An advertisement in the Career Factory
program features Canada as another option for U.S.-based Indian tech workers. "Too hard to get a USA green card?" the ad asks. "Worrying about being laid off? Why not get a Canadian green card as a back up?"
Jayadev (svdebug@pacificnews.org) is the editor of www.siliconvalleydebug.com, the voice of young workers, writers and artists in Silicon Valley and a PNS project.
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