The Indian IT companies operating in the US pay their employees higher than their local competitors, a report by market research firm, HIS market showed. The development has come in favour of IT companies in the US as many of them are facing the charge of underpaying the US nationals. Financial daily, The Economic Times reported that in the year 2017, India-based and India-centric IT firms paid $96,300 on an average to software programmers, both local as well as H-1B visa-holders. Notably, this average remuneration in the US is around 2 per cent higher than the median wage of $94,800.
National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), the Indian software industry body sponsored the report. As per the report, around 1,03,000 of the 1,70,000 workers employed by Indian IT companies in the US were working under overall computer systems design and related services industry. The IHS Markit took the data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and other government institutions to compile the report, which was further clubbed with the numbers provided by Nasscom member companies. The report also highlighted that during this period the total sales of these companies stood around $129 billion. Moreover, sales and spending through their US purchasing networks contributed an additional amount of $35.7 billion in sales activity.
The report showing the economic impact of Indian companies have been submitted to US Congress to shun out the misconceptions and gave detailed information of remuneration to both local hiring's as well as H-1B visa holders. Reiterating on the fact that India IT companies are paying equal wages to local hirings as well, Shivendra Singh, head, Global Trade Development at Nasscom said, "The primary message is that these companies are a very integral part of the American economy."
Peter Bendor-Samuel, chief executive officer, Everest Group, an IT advisory, and researcher added, "It demonstrates that Indian firms are not systematically underpaying their US-based employees. Having said that, I feel that at least for the time being and until a change in administration occurs, the report will have a limited effect." Under pressure from the Trump administration, the Indian IT companies have increased the local hiring in recent times. The report surveyed around 52 companies including Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro, and US-based firms such as Cognizant and Genpact.
