Infosys today said that it plans to hire 10,000 people and open four centres in the US in the next two years, with a focus on technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. The first such centre will come up in Indiana in 2017.

The Indiana centre is expected to create 2,000 jobs for American workers by 2021, Infosys said in a statement.

Apart from Infosys, both TCS and Wipro have made public their intent to hire in the US. Infosys and Wipro do not divulge the number of employees based in the US, but TCS CEO and Managing Director Rajesh Gopinathan said that in FY17 it recruited 11,500 employees outside India.

These developments come after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order for an overhaul of the country’s visa system, raising the minimum salary requirements of an H-1B worker from $60,000 to $130,000.

Analysts are not surprised by this move. “It was broadly expected,” said Urmil Shah, IT analyst, IDBI Capital, adding that Infosys has reduced its EBIT margins by 100 basis points (1 per cent) factoring this cost.

Infosys will follow a similar strategy to the one it pursues in India — hire a mix of experienced technology professionals and graduates from major universities and local and community colleges, and train them on skillsets, such as user experience, cloud, artificial intelligence, big data and digital offerings. “This can result in a ‘triple win’ benefiting Infosys, its customers and local US employees,” said Peter Schumacher, CEO, Value Leadership Group.

Industry watchers also believe that IT services companies are under pressure — both from macroeconomic factors influencing their clients’ decision to spend as well as the need to tackle the negative image of job takers.

“This is also an effort to improve goodwill after companies suffered a damage to their reputation,” said Mohan Lavi, Partner, KP Rao & company, a CA firm.

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