As pressure mounts on IT companies to hire more in the US, L&T Infotech says it will stick to its onsite ratio of 24 per cent and focus more on hiring people in India.

“This year we have said we will hire around 1,500 freshers and maybe up to 1,000 laterals (both in India and overseas). And I am not going to increase my onsite ratio. So, we will hire some locals for onsite but predominately bulk of the hiring will happen in India,” Sanjay Jalona, CEO at L&T Infotech, told BusinessLine .

Jalona said that while in the past most of the onsite engineers were Indians sent on H-1B visas, there will be more of locals working at onsite locations as the company tries to do more work through the offshore operations.

“So 24 per cent I am saying don’t change the onsite ratio. The same percentage of people will get hired in the US and obviously we want to hire more number of locals. Suppose you are hiring 5 people out of 60 (posted onsite) in the past locally, now you may want to hire 25 people out of 50,” Jalona said.

Jalona said hiring in US, however, remained a challenge as there is not enough talent available locally there.

“Of course, we are facing problems; that is why we won’t have our onsite workforce from the US — because there is no talent available there. We are using technologies like video conferencing, which has become cheaper and a whole lot of other options. Using these technologies we do more work even offshore,” Jalona said.

Protectionist environment

On the overall protectionist environment, Jalona said the impact is not yet visible and it is business as usual in both the US and Europe. Thanks to the company’s limited presence in the UK, he said the impact of Brexit is also negligible.

“I think there are a good amount of opportunities. Obviously, the protectionist environment will also come into play both in the US and the UK. Thank god we have small mercies in the Netherlands and France….but otherwise I think its positive overall,” he said.

Being a part of the $18-billion L&T group is helping L&T Infotech in getting new customers, Jalona said.

“L&T is also an $18-billion company with a $30-billion supply chain. This includes some of the world’s largest cement and elevator companies — the access helps us.

“Here by virtue of L&T, our ability to get through to the CEO of any large elevator or cement company is easy. And then if you have a strong contextual solution for them, you have an advantage that is quite positive,” Jalona said.

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