With India showing more resilience than the US and Europe to the global tech slowdown, an increasing number of Indian expatriates employed in the sector are exploring job options back home.
According to half a dozen executives at recruitment services, staffing and executive search firms ET spoke with, there has been a sharp increase in such queries in the last couple of months.
Currently there are more than 38,000 “accessible active Indian expatriate talent” in the market, looking for options with Indian employers, said Anil Ethanur, cofounder of Xpheno, citing data collated by the specialist staffing firm from job portals and LinkedIn. “It is nearly double that of a month ago,” he added.
The number is again picking up after falling from around 65,000 a year ago, according to Xpheno. HR firms that focus on CXO-level recruitments said they are witnessing a 15-30% increase in queries from Indian expats considering options to relocate to India.
Experts cited continuing market uncertainties, layoffs, a fall in recruitment by large global companies and high cost of living in the western countries for the latest trend.
The active jobseekers are mostly from the IT services, consulting and engineering space, though some from the construction and oil & energy sectors are also exploring employment back home, according to Xpheno.
Michael Page India, an executive search and recruitment services firm, is seeing a 15% jump in applications from Indian techies in the US.
India has moved up the value chain in terms of cutting-edge technologies and the US tech market is more impacted than India by the current slowdown, Said Pranshu Upadhyay, regional director at Michael Page India. “This is the opportune time for a lot of them for homecoming.”
‘Not in a Tearing Hurry’
According to Upadhyay, these are mostly senior professionals working as heads of product or engineering functions or at the chief technology officer level.
“There’s been somewhat of a surge not just from the US but also from a few European countries as well as the likes of Singapore,” said Ratna Gupta, senior partner at ABC Consultants, an executive search and talent advisory firm. “But they are not in a tearing hurry,” she said. According to the cofounder of recruitment and staffing firm Careernet, Anshuman Das, many of the employees who want to return are in the junior to mid-level. Those markets are choppy and countries other than India are hit harder by the IT slowdown, which is pushing this talent pool back to India, he said.
Also, those who had gone to the US for higher studies are now looking at getting back to India with jobs draining out, Das added.
India is increasingly becoming a base for global roles at MNCs and the pay difference has become negligible between local and US locations, giving another reason for IT professionals to consider a return to India, said Puneet Malhotra, partner – Global Technology & Services, Asia Pacific at Heidrick & Struggles.
