Some American corporations are retaining a small, but highly-prized slice of software jobs at home, mindful of the record unemployment levels and the anger among locals who see work being shipped overseas.
For Indian software providers such as TCS, Infosys and HCL, such a development – it is not expected to become a mainstream trend – could chip away a fraction of new jobs that could have been offshored to them. In an interview with Bloomberg on Monday, Charlene Begley, chief information technology officer of GE, said his company was rethinking the strategy of outsourcing more than half of its IT work.
Already, GE has announced plans to add 15,000 jobs in the US over three years, 1,100 of which will be at the Detroit IT centre. Walmart has also decided to drive the development and design of its ecommerce platform from a new centre in Brisbane, California.
At least a dozen executives at US-based firms and local American authorities said more companies would shift highend technology jobs as they are under pressure from their local constituencies to create jobs. “Companies like GE are under social pressure to demonstrate they care by creating local jobs. They have been practising economic sense for years and reaped enough profits,” said a senior executive at one of the top US tech firms. He requested anonymity because his company counts GE among its top customers.