US President Donald Trump has struck a blow against migration by imposing an annual fee of $1000 on the H-1B visa, which has allowed Silicon Valley to import Indian software engineers to provide the raw labour. Some in Pakistan have already scented an opportunity, as with the flow of software engineers stopped, the work they were supposed to do would be outsourced, and the software engineers would be able to work in their home countries, which would mean that Pakistanis could jump in and grab that work. Mr Trump has apparently engaged in an old man’s reaction, by slapping a tax on software engineers in the hope that, as one of his Cabinet members said, the tech firms would employ their own graduates. This ignores the fact that a lot of their “own graduates” are now second-generation Indian-origin. It also ignores the fact those “own graduates” are not able to compete with the Indians (71 percent of H1B holders) or even the Chinese (11.7 percent). These visas are issued only after the recommending company provides proof that it has searched, and not been able to find an American. That is why it is expected that there will not be a sudden flood of Americans getting jobs at these companies, but the companies will try to get their work done over the internet.
At the same time, there are a certain number of caveats. First, those who have been giving jobs to Indians are likely to look in the same direction when giving out assignments abroad. Second, there is a specific type of ecosystem which drives the flow of software engineers to the USA, based on the Indian Institutes of Technology, set up in the 1950s. Pakistan has no equivalent. Finally, the Artificial Intelligence revolution means that coding, which is the bread and butter of work in IT, may well be a thing of the past. Now the buzz words are ‘low coding’ and ‘vibe coding.’ Areour coders ready?
The local IT sector should use whatever paths it can find, but the government should also realize that India is ahead, not because of any innate talent, but because it has made the investment in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education that even the USA has not. Any hopes of competing depend on investing in these. The future is going to be ever more oriented towards these, and maintaining an edge in these is essential for national survival.
