RAISE Act may result in cost rise for IT firms

Firms shift focus from low-end services as the proposed act pushes for green card to highly-skilled

As the US President Donald Trump has backed the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment Act (RAISE) Act, a reform for green card application; IT services firms likely to see the rise in a cost as they may be pushed to hire high-skilled professionals locally.

If implemented, RAISE Act can also potentially increase the cost of employing an Indian software engineer in the US for both Indian and their global counterparts such as Accenture, IBM and others.

The Act, which aims to change the existing lottery system for issuance of green card (citizenship) into a point-based one, has proposed that