US Says no jobs for Indians?

The recession which has declined the world economy has forced obama to ultimate stress.Last November, Abhimanyu Gupta, an MBA student in New York University’s Stern School of Business, was on the top of the world when he landed a job offer from Bank of America’s investment banking division. This February , he felt right at the bottom of the abyss as the bank withdrew the offer and Mr Gupta’s world crashed just like the global markets.

Now, the 27-year-old chartered accountant, who left Mumbai in 2007 to become an investment banker in the world’s financial capital, plans to return home if he doesn’t get an offer by June when his course ends. With five months of recruitment time gone, Mr Gupta concedes that his chances of finding similar job in the US, which is battling the worst downturn in decades, are bleak. His chances are as bleak as hundreds of other Indian and foreign national students across top universities in the US, UK and other western economies, who now plan to go back home.

According to a recent study by the University of California, Berkeley, almost 84% of Indian students and 76% Chinese students in the US think it will be difficult to find a job in their field in the country. Even lenders are tightening the noose on international students. First-year MBA students, who were relying on loans from US banks to fund their second-year expenses, are in trouble because the banks have stopped lending to international students without co-signers .

The US has been in recession for 18 straight months now and has lost 5.1 million jobs so far. The world’s largest economy shrunk 6.1% yearon-year in the first quarter of 2009, following a 6.3% decline in the last quarter of 2008. A recovery is unlikely before the end of the year even in a best-case scenario.

Indian economy, which has seen a slowdown after growing at over 9% for three years, is still expected to grow at a healthy pace of 6-7 % in the current fiscal. India and China , the other emerging giant, are expected to bounce back faster and drive a global recovery. In fact, according to the University of California study that surveyed 1,224 foreign nationals from India, China and Western Europe, almost 86% Indian students and 74% of Chinese students believe their home countries’ economies will grow faster in the future than they have in the past decade.

While it may be easier for these students to find jobs in India, salaries here are not very attractive for most of them who are sitting on huge education loans. An MBA in a top western university costs anywhere between Rs 40 lakh and Rs 60 lakh. Also, many Indian students in the US are married and have families to support.