In last couple of years there has been severe shortage of H1B visas. The quota of 65000 work visas for skilled labor in US gets filled within hours of opening up. Even today, there are lots of Indians who want to leave Indian shores for greener pastures to the West.
However, Can you really call the west having greener pastures anymore?
Yes, they are greener, albeit just slightly. The gap between living in India and US / UK is reducing quite fast and it is quite evident from the number of IT professionals returning back to Homeland.
In last couple of years the number of Indians returning back has been constantly rising and according to survey recently conducted by Indus ventures around 60,000 professionals settled in US have returned to India in last year alone. That is nearly equal to Indians going to US yearly.
So, what are the reasons that have given rise to this trend?
Here is a brief look at top 5 reasons 8 reasons:
- Rapidly decreasing gap between Salaries in India and US. Salaries of Indian IT professionals in last few years. If you compare the living cost and salary ratio, I think an IT professional can lead much higher standard of living in India than he does in the Western countries.
- Opportunities! India is full of opportunities, with every MNC globally trying to open shop in India. Infact, the reason for such higher salaries in IT professionals is lack of people in this Industry. According to one recent NASSCOMM survey, India is facing severe shortage of IT professional by nearly 30%. So the IT professionals moving to India get much better growth opportunities than in the West.
- Most of the returning Indians are couples in the age group of 27 to 35 having kids. The major factor cited by the survey was to protect their kids from the Western culture. I am not saying Western Culture is bad, however for kids growing up in US with parents having Indian roots creates a lot of problems. Not without reason do they say ABCDs (American born confused Desis).
- Education is also one of the foremost reasons for Indians to move back. It is generally believed that Indian schooling system is quite good; however higher education is much better in the West.
- Constant feeling of getting back to the roots. You ask any Indian settled in US and you will always hear, “Wish I’d gone back to India”. If you don’t understand, go watch Yash Chopra films and you will know what I am talking about.
Readers contibution
- I believe its more of the support system in India that people miss outside. Imagine having a kid and then the whole household looking after the new born without any questions asked. Both in-laws are very eager to take care of the kid so that both parents can go back to work with a peaceful mind that their kid is being looked after by their own people. Outside India, such a thing is a luxury. You can leave your kids in a crèche, but it blows a big hole in the pocket. (Thanks Full2njoy)
- The reasons are increasingly for professional challenges too! Some feel that they can ‘break the glass ceiling ‘ by taking up assignments in India-which would also help them propel their career into executive positions-in a few years time. I suspect the dual citizenship helps. (Thanks Achyut)
- One of the reasons that I see is People in India are starting to believe in Brand INDIA.Also, with the rupee becoming stronger, there is a phase shift in the Indian Economy as well. The other reason is “Few years back, India was not conducive to Startups and Entrepreneurship but times are changing now.A simple example is the arrival of major Unconferences in India which gives an indication that Indians have become more open minded and many are willing to embrace Entrepreneurship. (Thanks Himanshu Sheth)
If I have missed any other important reasons, please leave a comment and I will be more than happy to add them here.