Infosys brings back 76 techies, their families from US

Bengaluru, July 08: In the midst of coronavirus pandemic and given the lockdown restrictions, N. R. Narayana Murthy owned India’s second-largest IT firm Infosys brought back 76 techies and their families from the United States to India via a special flight.

  

 

The techies and their relatives were flown in from San Francisco via special flight and landed in Bengaluru early Monday. The employees were a mix of those working on client sites as well some who had traveled to the US for some meetings or events. This step comes after as the US President Donald Trump suspended temporary work permits, such as the H1B and H4 visas. The US is the biggest market for Indian IT services firms accounting for the biggest share of their revenues.

 

Of the 76 employees who were brought back, most were working in the US under an H-1B or L-1 visa. Some had sought an extension of their visa, but the pandemic had delayed the process as embassies were shut down, forcing officials to work remotely across the world. The flight was operated by Qatar airways This is the first instance that the company hired a whole chartered flight to bring back their employees. The last time Infosys mounted a similar operation was during the Odisha floods when it hired a flight to help employees stranded in Bhubaneswar.

 

 

Infosys executive Sanjeev Bode in a LinkedIn post wrote, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going. COVID-19 has impacted our lives in unimaginable ways. Some of the Infosys employees were stranded in the US because of their visa expiration. All international flights were suspended because of the pandemic. The company booked the first-ever chartered flight exclusively for 200+ employees and families from the US to India. At the time of writing the flight had landed safely in Bangalore, bringing an end to weeks of dilemma related to the uncertain situation."

 

The US is the largest market for Infosys which contributed 61.6% to the company’s revenue as of the quarter ended March. The city-based $12.7-billion IT behemoth employs 2.4 lakh employees in 46 countries the world over. Infosys has 17,709 employees in the Americas. On the other hand, many Indians have lost their jobs amid the COVID-19 crisis. Yesterday US immigration department also issued a notice for international students briefing that the US won't allow foreign students if universities switch to online classes. Foreign students will have to leave the US if classes go fully online.