by Antonio Graceffo

India has been taking U.S. tech jobs through job relocation, telework, and special visas that bring Indian workers to the United States. This shift has driven Americans out of the tech industry, reduced job availability, depressed wages, and drained U.S. technical expertise as companies move work overseas for a fraction of the cost.

At the White House AI Summit on July 23, 2025, President Donald Trump called on U.S. tech giants to stop hiring overseas, specifically naming India and China. He criticized major firms for benefiting from American freedoms while building factories in China, hiring Indian workers, and stashing profits in Ireland, ignoring the welfare of Americans at home.

His message was blunt, “End corporate outsourcing” and “bring jobs back from India and China.”

As part of this push, Trump unveiled a 28-page AI Action Plan with more than 90 policy measures aimed at making America the global leader in AI and creating thousands of domestic jobs. Key measures include speeding up permits for data centers and chip fabrication plants, training skilled trades to support AI infrastructure, and restricting federal contracts to AI vendors whose models are politically neutral. The plan also calls for exporting complete AI solutions, chips, models, software, and standards to allied nations.

Trump also signed three executive orders at the summit, a national strategy to boost AI development, a requirement that federally funded AI projects produce politically neutral models, and increased aid for American-made AI tools.

These actions signal an end to decades of offshoring, potentially impacting India’s tech sector where U.S. companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google employ hundreds of thousands.

Trump concluded that winning the AI race will require “a new spirit of patriotism and national loyalty in Silicon Valley and beyond.”

His concern for American workers is supported by data. A senior developer in California might earn $150,000 or more, while the same role in India costs between $20,000 and $40,000. Research shows that when offshore wages are around 10% lower than U.S. levels, offshore employment grows about 13.1 percentage points faster than onshore employment.

Outsourcing has moved far beyond the early 2000s wave of call centers and repetitive tasks. Today, companies are offshoring high-skill, white-collar role, software development, finance, legal operations, HR, engineering, analytics, to India and other hubs. The pandemic accelerated this shift, with U.S.-headquartered multinationals growing their offshore workforce by 32% since 2019, compared to 16.7% growth in their U.S.-based workforce.

The U.S. has now outsourced an estimated 300,000 tech-based jobs to India, where workers play a critical role in the American tech ecosystem. In fiscal year 2023, Indian nationals also received 72.3% of the 386,000 H-1B visas issued, underscoring U.S. dependence on Indian STEM talent.

The top 30 H-1B employers brought in more than 34,000 new H-1B workers in 2022, 40% of the total annual cap, while laying off at least 85,000 employees in 2022 and early 2023. This pattern suggests that American workers are being replaced even as companies expand their use of foreign labor.

Research shows 60% of H-1B positions are assigned wage levels below the local median, with salaries for computer occupations averaging 17% to 34% less than local pay. Large tech firms, including Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, use the program to hire at these rates, contributing to wage suppression.

From 2019 to 2023, median weekly earnings for computer and mathematics roles rose just 0.27% after inflation, while wages in engineering and architecture fell 3.53%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Offshoring and replacing entry-level jobs, such as junior analyst, associate, or developer roles, not only depress wages but also erode career pathways, creating a “missing middle” in domestic skill development.

In 2023, U.S. colleges graduated 134,153 citizens or green card holders with computer science degrees, yet the federal government issued more than 110,000 work visas for the same field, intensifying competition for entry-level positions.