The United States may experience reverse brain drain as thousands of Indian IT professionals contemplate returning to India, according to a survey conducted by Corp-Corp.com, a US-based technology job portal.
The finding was based on a survey of more than 1,000 respondents of Indian origin, nearly half of whom were IT professionals, planning to return to India.
About 50 per cent of the respondents have plans to return soon, while 6.4 per cent of them have already returned to their homeland.
Survey participants included permanent residents, US citizens and work visa holders.
Fifty-one per cent said their decision was based on wanting to rejoin family and 26 per cent cited better opportunities as the reason to return to their homeland.
Around 10 per cent are planning to return for they believe their kids will get a better education in India.
“The results are very important for American businesses because they may face challenges in filling the gap of these resources,” said Mr Prabakaran Murugaiah, CEO of Corp-Corp.com.
“Businesses cannot replace an experienced workforce overnight,” he said.
The survey results show 69 per cent of visa holders and 57 per cent permanent residents or citizens intend to return.
Among the Asian Indian population, around 60 per cent are in management or professional occupations.
Mr Murugaiah said, “Many of the returning Indians have aged parents back home to take care. Also, recent economic growth in India with many good opportunities fuelled their thought process of heading back.”
“In addition to that, many US companies are opening their offices in India and hiring more to target the growing market in Asia. There may be some challenges in filling the gap created by these resources, because we cannot create a 10 years experienced resource the next day,” he said.
“However, there are 6 million IT professionals working in the US and this may not pose a bigger impact for the US tech industry. This trend may very well be a win-win situation for both countries,” he added.