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R. Yegya Narayanan

While the gruesome murders of two Indian families in the US recently in the wake of economic slowdown have raised questions about the safety of jobs of persons of Indian origin working in the country, an interaction with a few Indian families living and working in the US shows that there is no pessimism over what the future holds for them. For those Indians who are frugal in their ways of life and who swear by the virtues of hard work and keenness to improve their skill -sets, the economic recession does not look like the end of the road. The techies with whom Business Line interacted felt that there was no big rush for them to head back home, since their jobs seemed secure and life in the US far better that what they would lead in India.

Mr Kumar, who lives in Connecticut and has been in the US for nearly a decade, summing up the current slowdown, said “on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the worst case, I would give a 4’. He said nine out of ten families “will contemplate returning home only if they are forced to — in the case of prolonged unemployment, for example”.

Another Indian techie living in Silicon Valley, who did not want to be quoted, said it was too early to assess the impact of the current economic turmoil on the IT sector. As the IT budgets were annual, the impact would be clear only by Q2 or Q3 next year. . Mr Prasad, a software engineer in Atlanta who moved to the US early this year, felt that tech jobs “will not be at the forefront taking hits”.

On how the Indian families cope with the situation, he said “we’ve cut down on our monthly expenses — less movies, less visits to restaurants. If the situation worsens, we could sharpen our skill-sets, write certification exams so that we have an edge over other candidates”.

Mr Prasad said it was not merely the state of the US economy that would make him take a decision on life in the US. Lifestyle, infrastructure and social groups were other factors. Mr Suri, also an Atlanta-based software engineer, said demand for quality people was always there. A couple who moved to the US early this year got jobs even in the current economic situation while some of his friends who are US citizens were still looking for placement.

On how the ongoing slowdown had impacted their lives, Ms Nithya, a software engineer based in Connecticut, said their 401K retirement accounts had lost 25-40 per cent of their value. But since she was employed, she did not feel any major impact on her daily life. She does not think India “is an attractive option now because the Indian economy relies a lot on the American economy. So, when there is only good news here, there will be good news there too”. On joining US MBA courses, she said enrolment in MBAs by Americans had gone up recently since most people thought it was a good time to go back to school and gain the education that would provide some job security in the future. On how they planned to organise their lives once the current turmoil ends, Mr Prasad had a simple solution: “Spend less. Save more. Be debt-free. A mortgage-free life would be a better status symbol than driving a BMW”.

More Stories on : Software | Human Resources

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