HCL Tech steps up hiring in US, sees no threat from H1B issue

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Moneycontrol BureauThe prospect of the Donald Trump administration clamping down on the outsourcing model which is the mainstay of Indian IT companies has caused more than some anxiety. HCL Technologies, India’s fourth largest software exporter, is tackling this challenge by increasing its hiring in its largest market.“We have really looked at our current base of employees and then we have really looked at which part of those could be really replaced by local hiring," the company's President and Chief Executive Officer C Vijayakumar said after the company announced its third quarter earnings. "'The second thing is we are stepping up our campus hiring and entry-level hiring in the US to support some of the growth that we will see in the coming quarters.Even so, Vijayakumar isn’t too perturbed by the protectionist stance of the new regime in the US, saying its dependence on H1B visas is much less than that of its peers. He put the number of H1B visas applied for by the company at less than 1,000 every year.He said a very large percentage of HCL’s US staff count comprised local hires – more than half - and not necessarily people who moved from India on visas.  “We are generally focused on higher end skills where the availability is not there in the US geography,"' he said. ''That’s where we look at using the H1Bs. That’s why our employee cost is higher for our H1B employees compared to a lot of our peer group."  The company derives around 60 percent of its revenues from the Americas, the bulk of that coming from the US.  Vijayakumar said he considered Trump a business-friendly person and while there would be some pros and cons of some of his decisions, largely they would be business-friendly.“The need for the services will continue to be there," he said. ''Who is going to do it? Somebody has to do it. Whether you want to do it on the same onsite, offshore mix or you want to do it in a different mix, if there are any new guidelines, we will be very happy to follow that.''HCL net added 1,297 employees during the last concluded quarter to end 2016 with a staff count of 111,092.The Noida-headquartered company on Tuesday reported a 2.8 percent quarter-on-quarter jump in its October-December net profit to Rs. 2,070 crore. This came on top of a 2.6 percent rise in revenues to Rs 11,814 crore.