Is India’s brain-drain coming home?
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
WEDNESDAY, JULY 09, 2003 12:02:49 AM ]
WASHINGTON: India’s brain drain is coming around a full circle. In
an event unthinkable a decade ago, American companies, including
Microsoft and Intel, will participate in job fairs in the United
States later this month to recruit tech heads for their India
operations.
The first of the India-specific “career fairs” is being held July 17
in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley – at the Hilton in
Santa Clara, a stone’s throw from the Intel headquarters. A
subsequent recruitment drive is slated for Iselin, New Jersey on
July 24. Both events are targeted at techies of Indian origin
interested in returning to India. The events – to be hosted by the
magazine Silicon India – has created quite a stir among Indian
techies as the idea of returning home is catching on in the face of
the long-drawn crisis in the industry here. Although there are no
accurate estimates of this turn-around, anecdotal evidence suggests
that it is beginning to happen with increasing frequency. “In the
mid-1990s, the hot topic of conversation was the stock market boom.
In the late 1990s, it was start-ups. Then it was the melt down. Now
everyone is talking of relocating back to India,” says Panch
Chandrasekaran, an engineer with the Silicon Valley firm Altera, who
plans to pop into the fair “just to have a look.”
Directors of chip-maker Intel and software giant Oracle are slated
to speak at the Santa Clara event that will discuss among other
things technologies that are current in India and their global
applications, India office-US parent relationships, compensations
and lifestyle issues, and career growth and “revisits to the US”.
The issues are significant because many potential Indian returnees
seek to retain a toe-hold in the US while they test the waters in
India. Besides top guns Intel and Microsoft, other firms
participating in the fair include Cadence, Sequence Design,
Cognizant, Covansys, Insilica, FutureSoft, CalSoft, Synopsys and
Informatica. They range from chip and electronic design firms to
Business Processing ops and are seeking a wide set of skills – from
hardware engineers and chip designers to software gurus and project
managers.
According to Indian tech-heads in US, typically people who have
family issues in the India tend to head back first. There is also a
large constituency of people whose temporary work visas (H-1B) are
set to expire after six years and who have not moved into the Green
Card category. The compensation ranges from one-fourth of US salary
to even half, enough they believe for a comparable lifestyle in
India.
However, the Santa Clara conference is also pitching the cutting edge
work now being done in India. Both Intel and Microsoft have strong
development centres in India and are moving increasingly more
sophisticated work there, much to the dismay of US workers who
believed only low-end jobs would be leaving US shores. The US fairs
will bring together recruiters, HR managers, and people who would be
going back to India soon, according to Silicon India. The event will
also discuss “relocation issues, lifestyle issues, career paths,
futures for growth and all other concerns constantly on your minds,”
the magazine said while inviting potential India returnees to “meet
recruiters at their booths and discuss employment opportunities for
your skill set.”