Indian IT major Infosys has brought back 200 people comprising its employees and their families on a chartered flight from the US amid growing number of cases and uncertainty owing to visa issues.
Sanjeev Bode, Associate VP - Retail, CPG & Logistics at Infosys wrote on LinkedIn on Monday that some Infosys employees were stranded in the US because their visa had expired, and all international flights were suspended, and Infosys came to their rescue.
The company booked a chartered flight for over 200 employees and families to return 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,” he wrote
“A massive team effort behind the scenes, involving unrelenting efforts from facilities, HR, legal, finance and delivery made this day possible,” Sanjeev added.
The chartered flight took off from San Francisco and landed in Bengaluru on Monday.
This is a first for an Indian IT company, bringing back stranded employees.
Welcoming Infoscions and family! Returning on a special flight from the US after the lockdown! Teams coming together to make this possible! Teamwork is Dreamwork @Infosys @imravikumars @Narryhyd pic.twitter.com/pLIdeMXSmI
— nanjappa bs (@nanjappa_bs) July 6, 2020
As per reports, the US contributed for 61.6% of Infosys’ revenue in the January-March quarter.
With the number of coronavirus cases in the Us skyrocketing, and the country making changes to its immigration laws, there is heightened uncertainty among Indian nationals working in the US on non-immigrant visas.
Companies such as Infosys, make up a large part of H-1B visa applications.
As of February 2020, Infosys and TCS were the only Indian companies in the top 10 companies, which filed permanent residency applications for Indian nationals.
However, after the suspension of non-immigrant visas such as H-1B, Infosys COO Pravin Rao said that the impact on Infosys would be minimal because it has reduced its dependence on them over the years as the company hired more locals.
He said that 60% of their employees in the US were “visa independent”. He said shareholders that Infosys has recruited more than 10,000 US nationals in the last 24 months.