Is America dream over????

America has much dependent on Indian techies for its IT industry. With recession many Banks became bankrupt and many companies asked US government bail out plan. When President Obama took over charge of reins of America, he has promised American people that he will restore jobs to Americans. With thousands of jobs being cut by US companies almost daily over the past few months, there have been widespread apprehensions that these positions could go to low-cost foreign workers or might be outsourced to places like India.

To revive economy Obama has introduced $ 787 billion stimulus bill to revive economy. The US Congress has barred firms receiving government bailout from hiring Indians and other foreign workers through the skilled worker visa (H1-B) programme, if they are replacing American workers. A dozen banks which are getting over USD 150 billion as the bailout money have sought visas for over 21,800 foreign workers in past six years to replace sacked Americans. These banks have announced at least one lakh job cuts in the recent months

Indians account for a majority of those with H1-B visa, issued to non-immigrant skilled workers for up to six years. Restricting hiring of H1-B visa holders forms part of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, (the stimulus bill), that was passed by the Congress.

The government data for 2008 shows that about 5.7 lakh Indians were issued H1-B and other non-immigrant visas. About two years ago, the US had cut down the H1-B visa limit to 65,000, from 1,95,000 a year previously

Congress' move would certainly impact hiring of H1-B visa holders, thus affecting in a big way the engagement of Indian techies in the US, but might not affect outsourcing of jobs to places like India. It is believed that the provision in stimulus bill to restrict hiring of H1-B visa holders would deprive the US of the best global talent which comes in the form of highly trained and talented people.

There is wide spread job cuts in IT,BPO, Gems, Textiles, Real estate, infrastructure industry in India and many companies have freezed recruitments and cutting the salaries to cut the expenditure. The service industry depends on IT and infrastructure also badly affected. America is biggest consumer in the world and every country economy is linked with American economy. I feel countries should reduce dependency on USA and there should be reasonable salary structures in private sector, so that the companies also can pay salaries to employees with out job cuts.

Because of high salary structures in private industry, many companies are unable to pay employees salaries during recession hence pink slips. It is also believed that with high salaries there is wide gap in the society, where lot of money flow into the system and raising the prices of real estate, commodities etc. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan sigh has appealed to the private industry to have reasonable salary structure to the private sector employees. President Obama is appealing the private banks and Wall Street companies to have a reasonable salary structure.

With emerging economy, 7-8% annual growth, India is a land of opportunities. The honey in USA is over, many Indians are returning to India.

East or West , India is best

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