A recent report conducted by research outfit IHS Markit and commissioned by the Indian software industry lobby group National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) has shown that India-origin firms paid US-based software programmers an average wage of $96,300 in 2017. These wages included both domestic workers and H-1B visa holders and were reportedly around 2% more than the median wage of $94,800 that is given to software programmers in the US. IHS Markit apparently used figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics as well as other government data for its number crunching.
Now there will be some significant eye-rolling upon the realisation that the report was funded by Nasscom. And despite industry veteran Peter Bendor-Samuel, the CEO of Everest Group, telling the Economic Times that the report “demonstrates that Indian firms are not systematically underpaying their US-based employees,” this does not fully allay the scepticism around those figures.