Create jobs in US, business leader tells IT firms
11 Jan 2011
India's top information technology companies need to open new facilities in the US to create more employment opportunities for locals and to change the perception that they are job-takers, according to US India Business Council (USIBC) president Ron Somers.
"America is still in deep and in dark recession", said Ron Somers at an interactive session organised by Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC) in association with Indo-American Chamber of Commerce-South India Council in Bangalore yesterday.
''And if I were Wipro, or Infosys, I would do my level best to open up virgin facilities in the United States where you can create jobs so that Americans in Arkansas, in Nebraska, in every constituency where important Senators and Congressmen sit, at least can point to the fact that India is a job-creator and not job-taker,'' he said.
Somers, who had previously worked as Unocal Corporation's chief executive in India, said the impression in the US is that India is 'next China' and "oh, my God, all jobs are going overseas (to India). We have to mitigate that concern".
USIBC, made up of more than 350 of the top US companies investing in India, joined by two dozen global Indian companies, "spend our lives mitigating that concern", he said.
"Just opening of small facilities in the US by the likes of TCS, Wipro and Infosys would go a long way in creating jobs and demonstrating that ''the US-India knowledge partnership will positively create jobs in the 21st century". Somers said.
