India’s position as a labor arbitrage market may continue for another “25-35 years”, said IT consultancy Everest Group. However, it is unlikely that earlier offshored work would be back to its home market, it added.
“There is no doubt that India is still a highly attractive and viable option for low-cost labor, albeit not quite as good as it was 15 years ago, but still very compelling, and it will likely remain so for another three decades,” said Michel Janssen, Chief Researcher at Everest. “We move out our estimate for the end of the India labor arbitrage to beyond the 2040-50 time horizon.” Indian IT firms have put it that they have shifted from a model based purely on labor arbitrage and have been hiring in bulk onshore.