It’s official now. Over one lakh foreign nationals are working for Indian software companies around the world, a testimony of the industry’s growing popularity abroad. The industry totally employs around three million people.

“It is very significant number, and a majority of foreign employees work in the top four firms,” said Som Mittal, President, National Association of Software and Service Companies. The industry will keep hiring foreign nationals as it seeks our multi-lingual support services business, he said. India’s IT workforce has gone global by setting up 580 offshore development centres across 75 countries and working in 35 languages.

The industry started more than two decades ago in English speaking countries, and got 90 per cent of revenue then came from the US and the UK. This changed over the years and revenue from both the countries is now down to 78 per cent and the balance 25 per cent comes from non-English speaking geographies.

They will hire more and more people locally, said Mittal.

According to Sid Pai, Partner and President of ISG Asia Pacific, the higher number of foreign nationals working with Indian companies is both in response to the fact that they have now grown up to become truly global competitors as well as to tightening immigration laws.

Indian firms are now faced with the imperative of having to employ more people in their “consuming” geographies and one can reasonably expect that they will become significant employers in countries such as the US and the UK, he said.

Tata Consultancy Services leads the pack by employing 21,282 foreign nationals as on March 31, 2013 against 17,329 in 2011-12. Infosys, Wipro and HCL follow the leader.

For Wipro, out of its 1,34,541 employees in 98 nationalities, nearly 8.5 per cent of them are non-Indians.

> raja.simhan@thehindu.co.in

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