The largest U.S. company recruits a hiring rave in India. They are building hundreds of overseas office parks. These are not call centers, they are the offices of Indian professionals employed by companies around the world to perform advanced tasks that Americans would have performed not long ago. There are already 1,800 centers, and the growth rate has doubled. They will soon hire 2 million Indians.
President Trump wants to restore U.S. manufacturing. He is preparing to impose tariffs on India, which he said will bring back jobs and end a $46 billion trade deficit.
But tariffs reduce trade by making goods more expensive; they do not affect services or offshoring, which is the practice of hiring workers overseas. Visa restrictions are also irrelevant. The roles of these new centers are not suitable for immigration. They are for people who want to stay in India and work in a U.S. company.
Today’s newsletter is about a new type of offshore office park. Here, Indian workers are working on jobs that American workers envy. We will introduce the companies that are building them and the professionals who are now staffing them.
Office space, then
In the 1990s, banks and big tech companies realized that they could send jobs to India, where wages were only a small part of what the United States paid. Many of these are positions that Americans don’t want to fill. Sweaty young people piled up in the room late at night to help American customers rebook flights or find out if the guarantee has expired.
Nowadays, the roles are more advanced, and those who hold them often have graduate degrees. Workers are analyzing medical scans, writing marketing campaigns, balancing budgets and designing state-of-the-art microchips, the job that puts Americans in the top tax range.
This is not only happening here. Japanese and British companies have set up offices in places such as Mexico and Poland. But most of the multinational corporations are Americans, and most of these new centers are in India.
Why white-collar workers work
The United States is reducing immigration and its working-age population is declining. It is more difficult than ever for companies to hire skilled workers. However, India’s talent pool has little bottom, with engineering degrees about 10 times that of the United States each year.
As a result, various companies are gathered in six English-speaking cities in India. They include huge companies such as Cisco and Target, whose Bangalore campus is about the same size as its Minneapolis headquarters. Bank of America in Chennai. Hundreds of smaller companies are also rushing elsewhere. According to the American Chamber of Commerce in India, one-third of the Fortune 500 companies have similar centers all over the country.
Workers are managing the publicity of new mobile companies, developing applications, writing programs to detect fraud, and of course hiring more employees for the same center. I met a visually impaired employee who was designing an interface for weighing and stamps for blind Americans.
The pandemic has exacerbated this transition because remote work makes national borders irrelevant. Paroma Chatterjee, CEO of the country's online banking company Revolut, which founded in the UK, said Covid showed the fallacy of tying work to one place.
In 2021, when Chatterjee and her colleagues at Revolut hired their top seven people in India, they couldn't believe how a newbie was. With the next seven. New employees are excellent in finance, marketing, engineering and even HR: “Why shouldn’t we get this talent in India to help us build products for other markets in every other market in the world?” she said her colleagues want to know.
The employees are ambitious and they want to climb the rankings of American companies. They develop business plans and make decisions that impact operations around the world. The biggest difficulty, the worker told me, is the time zone: Coordinating zoom is a pain when California is twelve and a half hours behind India.
What will happen next
Trump may one day retaliate against U.S. companies that employ service workers. Some companies won't brag about fearing strong opposition to the invitation. But it is not clear what will ruin them: all Trump's taxes so far have been concentrated on imports, not touching this part of the economy.
Maybe Trump won't notice it. These high-paying, education-intensive positions are not the manufacturing jobs he promised to bring back.
I spoke with many of these workers and their bosses to tell the story I published in The Times this morning.
Latest news
Consequences of group chat
-
Palestinians in Gaza protest against Hamas amid rare public dissent. “We have enough war, destruction and killing,” one protester said.
-
South Korean wildfires killed at least 24 people and destroyed buildings, including two ancient Buddhist temples.
-
According to local monitoring groups, Sudan's troops bombed a crowded market and killed at least 54 people, which the group said was likely a war crime.
Other big stories
Opinion
Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi abandoned their stance, laying the way for the new leadership of Congress. Chuck Schumer should follow their example, Mariel Garza debate.
Young liberal voters did not move to the right. Many people didn't show up in November at all because they disagree with Kamala Harris's point of view, Neil Gross write a letter.
Yesterday clicked most: The most popular link for the second day in a row is 18 things you don't know about the iPhone can do.
Life and life: Federal Judge Michael Boudin forged a path of independence from the bench, although his ruling may have shocked his famous left-leaning family. He died at the age of 85.
Exercise
track and field: The sport's governing body will introduce mandatory DNA tests for athletes participating in female competitions.
NFL: The New York Giants signed the starting quarterback this season this season after agreeing to a deal with Jameis Winston.
NBA: Both Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart recorded triple-double for the New York Knicks, who beat the Mavericks.
We couldn't stop reading about Greenland in the morning. Trump said he wanted to buy it from Denmark. Vance will be there on Friday. The Times spent years covering the territory. This is our favorite story.
travel: This is what you should do when you travel to Nuuk, the capital of Greenland.
Q: A. : Geologists discuss Greenland's ancient past.
lens: These photos show the life of a remote northern settlement of 250 people.
television: The fourth season of the Danish series “Borgen” focuses on Greenland's geopolitical crisis.
football: Greenland has crowned its national champion in its shortest season on Earth, a week of games, injuries and controversy. Visit the game on the edge of the world.
pioneer:
file: In 1979, Greenlanders voted for the rule of the country, which removed control of daily affairs from the Danish parliament. Times are reporting there.
