Due to visa restrictions: US tech jobs boom in India
Restrictive visa policy of the Trump administration has an unintended effect: US tech giants are increasingly relying on personnel in India instead of the USA.
Stricter US visa rules accelerate personnel growth in other countries.
(Image: Guy J. Sagi/Shutterstock.com)
After the US government significantly tightened immigration for qualified specialists last year, large tech companies are increasingly hiring them in their countries of origin. Personnel growth is particularly strong in India, where Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft have recently significantly expanded their new hires.
In 2025 alone, these companies are expected to have hired around 33,000 new employees, an increase of 18 percent compared to the previous year. An even stronger increase is expected this year, writes the US tech publication Rest of World.
Currently, more than 4,000 positions are vacant, of which only 15 percent are entry-level positions with less than three years of professional experience. Almost half are positions in the fields of artificial intelligence, including machine learning, cloud, and cybersecurity.
India becomes a global development and talent hub
A central hub for the US tech industry is the Indian city of Bengaluru, where Google maintains its largest workforce outside the USA. According to Bloomberg, Google's parent company Alphabet is considering leasing office space for up to 20,000 employees, which would more than double the current workforce in India.
Microsoft operates its largest research and development center outside the USA in Bengaluru. For both Microsoft and Amazon, India is now the second most important labor market. Both plan to invest tens of billions of dollars in AI and new jobs there, according to their statements.
Apple is also expanding its commitment in India. After China, not least thanks to Apple, has become the most important location for electronics manufacturing worldwide, the company is now pursuing a similar goal in India. Apple recently announced the establishment of an education center in Bengaluru to recruit new developers and engineers there.
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Visa policy drives US jobs abroad
The increasing personnel growth in India is likely also a reaction to stricter rules for the US work visa H-1B, which allows highly qualified specialists to work in the USA for up to six years. The US government increased fees for new visas last year to 100,000 US dollars per application and simultaneously tightened the vetting process, for example, through detailed evaluation of resumes, online profiles, and social media activities. This was intended to encourage US companies to preferentially hire graduates from American universities.
However, this strategy appears to be having the opposite effect. India is benefiting particularly from this development, as large development centers already exist there and highly qualified specialists are available without visa hurdles. The demand for Indian specialists is shown by figures from 2024: According to these, 71 percent of the H-1B visas issued went to India and 11.7 percent to China.
(mma)
