American Dream Ends For Indian Techies?

New Delhi: Thousands of Indian techies continue to lose jobs at Big Tech companies amid fears of a recession fears. What is worse, most of them are finding it difficult to get new jobs owing to the freeze on new hiring.

Almost all major tech firms, including Amazon, Salesforce, Meta, Twitter, Uber and others have retrenched hundreds of employees and also put a blanket ban on fresh recruitment.

However, the good news is that a survey by ZipRecruiter revealed that nearly 79 per cent of sacked staff in the tech industry landed a new job within three months. About four in 10 laid-off tech workers found jobs within a month during their job search, the survey found.

The year 2023 is likely to be the worst year for tech layoffs and there may not be jobs for people with H1-B visas. Many H-1B will be left in the lurch with the latest retrenchments by Amazon and Salesforce, and Google soon joining the list. These Indian techies will again have 60 days to find a new job or leave the US, ending their American Dream.

To add to the miseries, the application fees for employment-based visas, such as H1-B and L, are also set to increase under a proposed US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) fee rule.

According to the new proposal, which will be subject to a 60-day comment period before it takes effect, the application fee for H-1B visas for high-skilled workers would jump by 70 per cent to $780. In addition, those seeking H-1B visas would also require paying $215 in pre-registration fees, raised from the current $10 fee.

In 2022, LinkedIn was flooded with stories of laid-off H1-B workers. Bilesh Bhandare, an Indian-origin data engineer at Twitter, told the San Francisco Chronicle that he has seen a dramatic turnaround in job availability in the market.

“My take is, no one wants to commit now for full time because companies are not sure about the economic situation,” Bhandare told the Chronicle.

It is an anxious time for thousands of newly laid-off workers amid inflation pressures and recession concerns. Some people got jobs but even they were pessimistic about the current market.