Telugus advised to accept low-pay jobs

Ongole: The mass layoffs by the big IT companies in the US are greatly affecting the Telugus, and their parents and families in both the Telugu states. The industry experts, organizations leaders from the US assure that the situation won't be that tough to the green card holders and residents, but advise the H1 and other work visa holders to be cautious and ready to be flexible in terms of jobs and total pay compensation (salary).

In the last few months, about 2,00,000 workers from Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon, Cisco and other big companies were laid off due to the ongoing economic crisis. The layoffs tracking website layoffs.fyi estimated that about 1.60 lakh employees were laid off in the whole year 2022, but more than 57,000 workers were laid off in less than a month in January 2023.

According to the report by Washington Post, nearly 80,000 Indians were now trying to find new employment in the US.

The people working on H1 and L1 visas are the one in need of a new job immediately, if they are not ready to return home.

Explaining the situation, Srinivas Gullapalli, founder of Prakasam Global NRI Forum, told The Hans India that layoffs affected all communities in the US, including the Indians. He said that about half of the Indians in the US are from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and are in senior positions in many companies and the first to face the axe.

Srinivas observed that the recession in the US is a common scenario that occur in a cycle every few years, but this one is hitting the technical professionals more than those from other sectors. He advised the employees, who lost their jobs, to be patient and have hopes on a great future as the companies are expected to start recruitment once again in 2024. TANA president Anjaiah Chowdary Lavu said that being pioneers in the IT sector, Indians are most affected. He too was of the opinion that Indians, especially the Telugus, should be flexible to accept job offering less salary to surf on the tide, as the companies are primarily laying off the workers with higher salaries. He said TANA was helping the people looking out for jobs but only at personal level as the TANA policy forbids them to officially assist in placements. Kotha Subrahmanyam, father of a US H1B visa worker from Ongole, said that his son had informed that they were facing a hard time. He said that due to the increased expenditure and interest rates for housing and car loan in the US, his son asked them to stall the marriage proposals for this year.