NEW DELHI: After a year that was marred with geopolitical uncertainties and related impacts like soaring inflation, tightening monetary policy and slowing economic growth, the year 2023 started with a series of layoffs at big companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon and more.
The layoffs have impacted almost all sectors, but the worst of them has been the tech sector worldwide.
According to a report in Washington Post, nearly 2 lakh IT workers have been laid off since November last year in the United States.
As a result, thousands of Indian IT professionals in the US have also lost their jobs and are now struggling to find new employment within the designated time period under their respective visas.
Here are 10 things to know:
Tech companies are facing a demand downturn after 2 years of pandemic-driven growth during which they had hired aggressively. That has led the likes of Meta Platforms Inc to Microsoft Corp to shed thousands of jobs.As per some industry insiders quoted by PTI, between 30 to 40% of the laid off workers are Indian IT professionals, a significant number of whom are on H-1B and L1 visas.A significantly large number of Indian IT professionals, who are on non-immigrant work visas like H-1B are L1, are now scrambling for options to stay in the US to find a new job in the stipulated few months time that they get under these foreign work visas after losing their jobs and change their visa status as well.The situation is getting worse for those on H-1B visas as they have to find a new job within 60 days or else, they would be left with no other option but to head back to India.Indian workers who are in the US at the moment feel that getting another job within this short period is next to possible when all IT companies are on a firing spree, news agency PTI reported.According to a PTI report, Global Indian Technology Professionals Association (GITPRO) and Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS) have launched a community-wide effort to try and help these IT professionals by connecting job seekers to job referrers and informers.Fired IT workers have also formed various WhatsApp groups to find ways to look for a job. People are also helping each other by forwarding any vacancies they find in the US. In one of the groups, there are over 800 jobless Indian IT workers searching for a job.Indians in US are also discussing the available visa options with them - some immigration attorneys have volunteered to offer their consultancy services as well.People quoted by PTI also said that the job loss is a huge disruption on their family lives and education of children. They are now appealing for the immigration process to be redesigned to better support H-1B workers and retain highly taented workers in the US.Google became the latest to join the list of tech firms who have resorted to firing employees citing the adverse impact of a global slowdown. The company has also paused their green card processing. Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Intel, Lyft, Twitter, Salesforce, Qualcomm, Coinbase Global, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and a host of other major corporates have slashed jobs so far this year.
