Indian tech stocks tanked on news of new United States legislation that seeks to double the minimum salary of H-1B visa holders, making it difficult for the firms to replace the American employees with the Indian software professionals.
TCS, , Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra the big four Indian IT firms, and each lost between 3% to 6% on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on fears that their competitiveness vis-à-vis global competitors will now be gradually destroyed as they will be forced to hire the expensive American labour.
The High Skilled Integrity & Fairness Act of 2017 introduced by California congressman zoe who raises the salary level at which the H-1B dependent employer are exempt from the and recruitment attestation non-displacement requirements to greater than $130,000. This is more than the double of current H-1B Minimum Wage of USD 60,000 which was established in 1989 and since then has remained unchanged.
Ball-park estimates that the show of average salary of a H1B visa-enabled Indian Technology Professional Employed in the United States is in the range of $80,000-110,000.