The Indian techies who lost their jobs

Why are Indian techies in the US struggling to stay on in the country after losing their jobs?

Transcript

00:00An Indian couple working at Google woke up to the rude shock of being fired one fine day.

00:04From what the husband described on LinkedIn, it seemed like they were not given notices

00:08before they were laid off.

00:10He mentioned it was around 6.30am, she was preparing to conduct a meeting while he was

00:14just waking up.

00:15But they both couldn't log into their work profiles, he said.

00:18He mentioned they were informed about this on email.

00:20They were amongst many Indian IT professionals in the US who were struggling to stay there

00:25as thousands of tech workers were being laid off.

00:27Why can't they take their time to find new jobs in the US?

00:30Because Indian workers get particular visas for specific periods of time to work there.

00:34They can't stay there if they lose their job and don't find a new one before their visa

00:38expires.

00:39For non-immigrant workers, there are several visa options, three of which are H1B, L1A

00:45and L1B visas.

00:46If, for example, I'm an H1B visa holder, a company in the US can hire me to work there.

00:51But the visa comes with a three-year validity only.

00:54This validity can be extended to three more years after its first expiry date.

00:58So in total, this gives me six years in the US.

01:01There are exceptions though, which can allow me a longer visa permit.

01:05If I need to operate from my company's US office, I can get an L1A or L1B visa to get

01:10a transfer there if I hold a managerial position or if I can offer specialized expertise.

01:16Tech companies use these visas to hire thousands of workers from India and China every year.

01:21These jobs are usually considered secure, but since November 2022, tech companies such

01:25as Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and Twitter have been cutting down their workforce heavily.

01:31What happened is, a lot of these tech companies saw sharp rise in profits during the pandemic

01:35or shortly after it.

01:36So they went on hiring sprees.

01:38But then, the economy slowed down because of supply chain issues, inflation and rise

01:43in interest rates, and the companies had to reconsider retaining expensive talent.

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