Cognizant plans to hire more Americans this year

The Dollar Business Bureau 

Software major Cognizant Technology Solutions said it would boost hiring in the US, a step that comes amidst President Donald Trump’s hard stance on curbing H1-B visa rules. The company registered a higher-than-expected profit in the last quarter.

The New Jersey-based company gets over 75% of its revenues from North America and depends majorly on workers on H1-B visa for providing IT services to its clients. H1-B visa is a non-immigrant visa which allows US firms to temporarily hire foreign workers.

Cognizant has around 260,000 employees, a majority of which are based in India.

President Trump has ordered the review of the visa programme that brings highly-skilled international workers into the US, potentially impacting the hiring plans of tech companies and outsourcing firms.

Cognizant is planning to employ significantly more Americans, expand its delivery centers in the US and to cut its dependence on the H1-B visas, said Rajeev Mehta, President, Cognizant.

“We applied for less than half the number of visas we saw last year and we expect to further reduce our need for these visas going forward,” Mehta said.

Cognizant said that last year, it hired 4,000 American workers. However, it has downplayed the concerns about pressure on margins and costs due to the hiring.

Indian IT companies have also been impacted hard with the visa review by President Trump. Earlier, Infosys Ltd has said that it plans to hire around 10,000 American workers in the coming two years and to open four tech centres in the US.

Wipro Ltd is also planning to hire more Americans. This year, both firms have reduced their applications for H1-B visa.

Cognizant said that it is expecting revenue in the range of $3.63 billion to $3.68 billion in the current quarter.