The Trump Effect
Nimrah Mehmooda ECE
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016 saw the ugliest , nastiest election campaign in history . There were scandals , controversies and a lot of vitriol thrown at each side . And the fateful year that 2016 was , it ended with Trump getting elected . Donald Trump defied the expectations and hopes of all pollsters , journalists , academicians and politicians as he beat Hillary Clinton to become the 45th President of the United States .
Amid all his controversial stances and policies on domestic and foreign issues , the one that perhaps affects Indians by and large is his stance on the H1B visa . Donald Trump earlier in his election campaign vehemently opposed what he alleged was the ‘ abuse ’ of H1B visas by software companies , which he claimed hired cheap labour from India and other South East Asian countries thereby denying Americans their jobs . After winning the elections , his transition team reaffirmed his commitment to ‘ scrap ’ the H1B visa , or to heavily revamp its use . What can this mean for the Indian engineer ?
Among the proposed modifications was granting the H1B visas to only ‘ highly qualified ’ workers who must hold a Master ’ s degree , and getting rid of the lottery system to grant H1B visas . The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers , a prominent professional organization in the United States , has repeatedly called for reforms in the visa programs , calling for scrapping the lottery system which the US uses to grant H1B visas , and replacing the system with which grants the visas to the highest paying jobs first . Appointment of Senator Jeff Sessions , a long-standing critic of the H1B program as the Attorney General of US by Trump does not paint an optimistic picture for the future of H1B program and workers either .
Those who will be hit hard by this recent crackdown on the H1B visa program will be consultancies and outsourcing agencies , particularly Infosys and Tata Consulting Services , both who have been accused of abusing the program to substitute IT jobs with cheap foreign labour . There is no denying that India has been benefited majorly by the HIB visa program , which allowed US companies to outsource jobs and hire foreign workers willing to work for cheaper costs . The
top recipients of H1B visas were outsourcing firms which were all Indian , with Tata Consultancy Services topping the list . Globalisation has helped India expand business in service sector boosting its economy since the 1990s . US ’ s rollback on globalist economic policies is quite opportunistic on US ’ s part and can significantly hurt India ’ s economy and employment scene .
With lakhs of engineers graduating every year in India , most of who end up working in the Information Technology sector regardless of the branch they major in , the lack of global opportunities could mean severe competition for domestic jobs and a looming threat of unemployment . H1B visa requirements may include a mandatory Master ’ s degree in future , which means that Indian engineering graduates who plan on working in with the US on a H1B platform must pursue higher education . It is safe to say that the new generation of engineering graduates who wish to secure their career must now look for alternatives like pursuing post-graduation degrees or working in PSUs , both of which require one to prepare for GATE , or other alternatives like MBA , etc .
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