White House calls Infosys’ plans to hire 10,000 Americans political victory for Trump

IT giant Infosys’ decision to hire 10,000 Americans in the next two years, has been welcomed by the Trump administration. It was a result of the US government’s pro-growth economic agenda, the White House issued a statement.

The four new centres will be opened in the US and 10,000 Amrecians will be hired in the next two years, Infosys said. It is seen as part of efforts to mitigate the impact of H1-B visa curbs.

The first centre as per this project will be opened in Indiana in August, which is also the home state of US Vice-President Mike Pence. This centre will be dedicated to news technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

The White House in a statement issued to The Washington Post, termed the declaration by the Bangaluru-based tech firm a political victory for the Trump camp. It is to be noted that the camp on several times had accused outsourcing firms of “unfairly” taking jobs away from the US.

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In a statement issued to The Post, a White House spokesman Ninio Fetalvo said, “We’re glad to see companies like Infosys see opportunity in the American economy again.”

The US in the past had repeatedly accused Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, of unfairly cornering the lion’s share of the H-1B work visas by putting extra tickets in the lottery system. Besides 65,000 H-1B visas granted by the US, other 20,000 are set aside for those with advanced degrees.

A small number of giant outsourcing firms flood the system with applications which naturally ups their chances of success in the lottery draw, an official of the Trump administration said at a White House briefing last month.

One of the major election promises by the US President Donald Trump was reforming the H-1B visa system. The executive order will make it harder for tech firms to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labour, and will strengthen rules barring foreign contractors from bidding on government projects, the White House said.

With inputs from PTI.

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