Indian multinational IT corporation Wipro has brought home on chartered flights more than 500 employees from Australia, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Repatriated workers’ visas have expired or are near expiry.
One of the special flights carrying over 100 employees from New York landed in Bengaluru on July 15, according to Saurabh Govil, President and Chief HR officer at Wipro, a large IT company from India.
“We are also chartering flights to bring back our employees from London and Germany,” Govil said. He added that they bring back employees every quarter, but the process had been “backlogged” as flights were not operational due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Govil denied that temporary suspension of H-1B visas is the cause. “We have over 70% localization in the US and do not see big disruption or an impact right now. The company will hire from campuses this year in a staggered manner,” he said.
Besides Wipro, other Indian IT majors have also brought back employees. Tata Consultancy Services repatriated 900 employees, of which almost 500 from the United States alone. Infosys brought back 200 employees from the US, while Tech Mahindra repatriated 210 employees via a special chartered flight from Dallas, Texas to Hyderabad — it landed on July 14.