India attracts more and more IT professionals

Indian companies have actively recruited in the US

The rate at which Indian IT professionals are returning home from the US is likely to increase, a leading Indian IT figure says. Read original article

• TiE
• Silicon India

An estimated 60,000 have already gone back in the last four years according to a survey by the global organisation, IndUS Entrepreneur Group (TiE).

But TiE's Saurabh Srivastava says the numbers will increase because of improved prospects back home.

At the same time the job market has got harder in the US.

'Pull factor'

The trickle of Indians returning home began when the dot com bubble burst at the turn of the century Mr Srivastava, a founding member TiE, says.

Have an open mind to face all challenges and a tremendous amount of perseverance and can-do attitude Vimal Sareen

"It started off by being a bit of a push," he says.

"Today it's more of a pull factor because people see there's a lot of growth (in India), careers are looking up, the salaries have become more interesting."

An IT professional who had an annual salary of $100,000 back in the US, can expect to make around $35-40,000 in India.

"Even though the wages are lower than in the US, the people going home are likely to have the same quality of life," says Mr Srivastava.

'Bet'

Many of them are also coming back to India to start up their own companies and are creating jobs.

Vimal Sareen was in America for 19 years. Both his children were born there.

When he decided to return to India back in 1997, "I made a forecast (on Indian growth) and a bet on myself" to succeed back home, he says.

He is not surprised at the number of Indians now making that same journey and he also expects the number to grow in coming years.

Sareen's advice to those thinking of coming back is "to have an open mind to face all challenges and a tremendous amount of perseverance and can-do attitude."

Otherwise they should stay in the US.

It is not only first generation immigrant Indians but "the very highly qualified and well established and very wealthy people of Indian origin in the US relocating," says Saurabh Srivastava.

"It used to be a small trickle, it's becoming a stream. That's what you want."

Mr Srivastava would love to see a flood making the return home, but is not confident enough yet to say that will happen.