Not just migration, but a global labor export campaign
India’s “Global Access to Talent from India” (GATI) initiative, has been personally championed by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and other Indian officials who openly describe this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to redirect jobs, wages and even long-term industry trends away from America and into the pockets of India’s government, its outsourcing giants and their international partners.
India calls this a “now or never” moment, warning that the window of demographic advantage could close as mounting competition comes from African nations, the Philippines, Indonesia, Egypt, Vietnam and Brazil, all vying for their own share of the global labor market.
“India and the basic groundwork done to enable Indian talent to gain global access is there. Now, how well they do that and what will be the scale – I think that is up to us,” – S. Jaishankar
India’s GATI initiative’s true intent behind India’s labor export agenda.
With a projected “global labor gap” of 45–50 million jobs in high-income countries by 2030, India sees a once-in-a-generation opportunity to flood foreign markets with its mass population to enter the global workforce. The document outlines a goal to double or even triple the annual outflow of Indian workers, aiming for a “potential stock” of millions of Indian migrant workers overseas.
But the ambition doesn’t end there. India is positioning itself as a “geostrategic partner” for major economies, hoping to be recognized as the world’s “trusted migration partner” and rebranding its citizens as a global “talent brand.”
The Global Access to Talent from India (GATI) Foundation has sounded the alarm, predicting that this talent gap could expand dramatically over the next two decades.
Behind this bold new push India has developed a structured and aggressive multi-horizon strategy to unlock its overseas labor potential. Through a combination of diaspora influence, bilateral negotiations, demand-side positioning, skill alignment and financing mechanisms, India calls for a “whole-of-nation” effort to coordinate the mass movement of workers abroad, treating its citizens as a strategic export. At the same time, Jaishankar demands that destination countries erase their own protections and reshape their laws to accommodate this outflow. This is not about mutual benefit. It’s about using foreign labor markets to solve India’s unemployment crisis and economic growth.
Outbound movement, remittance inflow
By its own admission, GATI has engineered a massive, state-backed campaign to export Indian labor on a scale never seen before. This isn’t just about creating new job opportunities for Indians, it’s about systematically opening foreign markets, expanding India’s labor supply and building a permanent ecosystem that channels workers (and wages) out of America and back to India. As one BCG leader put it, India’s labor exports could grow to as many as 2.5 million workers per year.
This is not a workforce solution for the United States. Indian officials publicly celebrate the higher wages their workers earn overseas, calling it “transformative” for India’s economy, while U.S. companies line up to replace Americans with cheaper, more compliant foreign labor. The result is a hollowing out of America’s middle class, not a win-win for both countries. What’s unfolding is not an isolated series of layoffs, it’s a deliberate, top-down overhaul of the U.S. labor market, designed by Indian policymakers, embraced by corporate America and propelled by relentless lobbying for more visa access.
The Global Access to Talent from India (GATI) Foundation openly targets $300 billion in annual remittances, money siphoned from American paychecks and communities, spent and invested back in India. India’s leaders make no secret of their endgame to use public-private partnerships to streamline recruitment, training and job placement for Indian nationals, maximizing remittance flows and strengthening India’s economic influence abroad.
These remittance inflows have become a critical pillar of India’s economic strategy, pumping billions back into the country every year. Through GATI, India aggressively markets itself as the world’s “reliable labor supplier,” positioning outbound migration as a strategic national asset. The focus isn’t truly on skill development, but on maximizing remittance inflows and using the export of labor as an economic lever to boost India’s global image and attract foreign investment.
The impact however is every job handed to an Indian guest worker is one lost to an American family. Through the GATI Foundation’s deep network of corporate partners, India is lobbying for looser visa rules and making Indian worker preference the new normal in major U.S. industries. Meanwhile, American companies are increasingly outsourcing everything, from recruitment to training, directly to Indian partners, ensuring that foreign nationals fill key roles while qualified U.S. citizens are left behind.
At its core, the GATI Foundation’s blueprint is not about helping Americans or fixing genuine labor shortages. It’s about exploiting loopholes in U.S. immigration policy and leveraging global labor narratives to cement India’s rise, at the direct expense of the American workforce.
The real agenda behind “Global Talent Shortage”
The GATI Foundation was created to exploit what India calls a “demand-supply mismatch” in global labor markets. Citing projections that labor shortages in high-income countries could reach 250 million in 25 years, India pitches itself as the answer, if only Western nations open their doors to millions of Indian workers. The GATI Report frames this supposed crisis as an economic certainty, pushing the narrative that countries like the U.S. and Europe must ramp up labor migration or face disaster.
But this narrative falls apart on closer inspection. These “shortage” projections ignore millions of Americans and Westerners who have been forced out of the workforce by layoffs, offshoring and corporate cost-cutting. The “labor gap” is little more than an accounting trick, counting open positions that employers refuse to fill at fair wages and normal working conditions. Instead of investing in local workers, companies push for visas to import cheaper labor and India stands ready to supply it.
The contradiction is glaring: GATI and its supporters claim that both automation and “Gen AI” are eliminating jobs and creating labor shortages at the same time. It’s a manufactured crisis, a narrative designed to benefit global corporations and foreign governments, not American families.
India’s campaign isn’t about filling genuine gaps, but about lobbying for new visa categories, higher caps and direct government-to-government deals to force open “mature” markets like the U.S., UK, Canada, Germany and Japan. The GATI Report itself admits that in these countries, mass inflows are only possible if their governments change laws and visa policies, not because the market demands it, but because India’s lobby demands it.
If there truly were a dire worker shortage, existing visa programs would be flooded with qualified applicants and positions would fill quickly. Instead, India is manufacturing demand by lobbying for new pathways and using diplomatic muscle to export its unemployment crisis and the “remittance gold rush” that comes with it, into Western economies.
The reality, as detailed in India’s own 2024 Employment Report, is that India’s job creation is not keeping pace with its exploding youth population. Far from being a demographic advantage, this so-called dividend is a growing liability, with millions of educated young Indians unable to find work at home.
Jaishankar and India’s leadership are not merely describing labor trends; they’re demanding permanent, government-backed pipelines to move Indian workers into foreign markets, shifting the costs and consequences onto the United States and its citizens. The “global talent shortage” is not a fact of economics, but a tool of policy, propaganda crafted to dismantle labor protections, depress American wages and entrench the power of foreign governments and multinationals, all at the expense of the American worker.
If high-income countries truly faced dire worker shortages, there would be no need for elaborate visa interventions or government-to-government lobbying to “unlock” markets. The GATI Foundation’s own documents divide Indian migrant flows into two categories: “achievable” flows, using existing temporary visa regimes and “aspirational” flows, which require sweeping policy changes, like new visa categories or higher caps, to flood more workers into so-called “saturated, mature markets” like the U.S.
The admission that mass inflows require legal changes, not genuine demand, lays bare the myth of a true labor shortage. If employers were really desperate for workers, current visa programs would suffice. Instead, the Indian government is pressuring foreign nations to alter their laws, not to fill real gaps, but to create new market access for its surplus labor, regardless of need.
What India demands is not a solution to any workforce crisis, but a calculated initiative to force open “mature” economies using diplomatic and political leverage. The fact that these countries need “structural unlocks” is proof that any so-called shortage is manufactured by policy, not by economics. India’s rhetoric of crisis, paired with pressure on other governments to change their visa laws just to take more Indian workers, exposes the real aim: exporting unemployment and maximizing remittances, directly at the expense of local workers.
The “Global Access to Talent from India” (GATI) program is sold as a fix for global labor shortages, but India’s own 2024 Employment Report reveals the truth. Despite economic growth, India lags in job creation, especially for educated youth. What’s celebrated as a demographic dividend is, in fact, a ticking liability. Jaishankar isn’t just describing labor trends; he’s demanding a permanent, access for Indian labor into foreign markets. This “win-win” is only for India. The costs, economic, social and cultural, are dumped into the U.S. and its allies.
The myth of a “global talent shortage” is a political tool. India’s real goal is to export its unemployment crisis to developed nations, one work visa at a time, dismantling labor protections, depressing wages and restructuring Western economies to benefit foreign interests and multinationals, while leaving American workers behind.
The skills mirage: India’s talent shortage cover-up
India promotes its vast, English-speaking workforce as the solution to the so-called global talent shortage, marketing the GATI scheme as a direct pipeline of world-class professionals. In truth, GATI is engineered to move as many people abroad as possible, papering over the persistent problems of quality, skills and employability that continue to plague India’s workforce. Leaders like S. Jaishankar champion “skill development” and “global mobility,” but India’s own data reveals the reality: fewer than half of Indian postgraduates are employable by international standards, according to India’s Skill Reports. This isn’t about quality it’s about numbers.
Billions are funneled into crash courses, language bootcamps and certifications, not to build genuine expertise, but to create a façade of qualification often after jobs have already been promised overseas. Even in crucial sectors like healthcare, where Jaishankar boasts India can “solve” Western shortages, the fact remains: India struggles to meet its own domestic needs. Skill reports and experts like Dr. Chakraborty confirm that Indian training programs consistently fail to prepare graduates for real-world demands, leaving millions underserved and resources misallocated. Rather than closing the skill gaps at home, the focus is on exporting as many workers as possible, regardless of whether they actually meet international standards.
Instead of tackling these deficiencies, Indian policymakers double down on producing export-ready graduates, exploiting labor shortages in developed nations. The result is a system designed to chase foreign profit while neglecting the needs of Indian citizens.
At the GATI launch, Jaishankar pledged to “bridge the gap” and ensure Indian talent “gets the access it deserves.” These partnerships are praised as answers to global disruption, but in practice, they shift American investment and training dollars abroad, draining jobs, innovation and opportunities from American communities.
Much of GATI’s investment in training and certification happens only after jobs are secured for workers overseas. Private investors and government-industry partnerships keep the labor export open even if it means manipulating credentials or lowering standards to meet quotas.
Why resort to such measures for so-called “skilled” labor? The reality is, India isn’t overflowing with world-class professionals, it’s overflowing with people. The real objective is to wedge as many Indian nationals as possible into good-paying American jobs, often regardless of true qualification or the local impact. Meanwhile, capable American workers are left behind, not due to a lack of ability, but because our own policymakers and corporations have bought into India’s narrative and abandoned investment in the American workforce.
The hidden cost of investing in India’s supply strategy
The GATI scheme is promoted as a win-win, a solution to global shortages, a boost for prosperity. In truth, it is a massive, state-backed effort to export Indian workers at any cost to host countries. India has built a vast financial infrastructure to facilitate outbound migration offering bridging loans, insurance and rotating funds, all subsidized by public and private grants. For employers, it’s cheaper to bring in Indian nationals than to invest in their own workforce.
But the GATI strategy doesn’t stop at financing. India is demanding that host countries overhaul their labor systems to accommodate and protect incoming workers. Grievance mechanisms, legal mandates and resource centers lock in rights for migrants, while incentives including low-interest business loans and reskilling support are used to tilt hiring toward foreign workers.
The hidden costs are staggering. American workers are not only undercut by lower-paid foreign labor but are forced to compete with a workforce backed by another nation’s government and a web of corporate allies. Meanwhile, U.S. training standards and credential requirements are undermined, eroding the value of American education and experience.
This isn’t a temporary fix. It is a permanent, self-reinforcing system, channeling billions in remittances back to India and institutionalizing foreign worker preference in advanced economies. The outcome is inevitable: falling wages, lost jobs and a steady erosion of America’s sovereignty over its own workforce. Every dollar invested in this supply strategy is a dollar stolen from the American economy. It’s time to demand a course correction, one that puts American skills, livelihoods and interests first.
Hiring from India is like signing a contract riddled with hidden clauses; by the time the consequences are clear, the damage is done. The American workforce deserves better. Those jobs belong to American workers not a foreign government’s export strategy.
A blueprint for displacement: India’s cold, calculated framework
If real demand existed, employers would be hiring under existing laws, not lobbying for new quotas and special visa categories. The constant push for “structural unlocks” and expanded migration pathways exposes just how artificial the so-called labor shortage truly is. In reality, what’s labeled a “labor gap” is often the result of deliberate, protective systems such as credential recognition, language requirements and high application costs designed to uphold national workforce standards and integrity.
India’s strategy is focused on breaking down these protective barriers in top destination countries, pushing to relax immigration standards and increase foreign worker inflows. India’s own analysis admits Indian certifications often aren’t recognized overseas due to mismatched skill requirements and quality standards, a clear sign that many of the workers being pushed abroad are not actually qualified for the jobs at hand.
To get around these constraints, India’s plan is to “harmonize demand-centric skilling,” lobbying for international recognition of Indian credentials and pushing for government-backed loans to subsidize outbound migration. The goal isn’t to meet genuine needs, but to bypass local standards and flood foreign markets, regardless of the consequences for host countries.
In short, these “binding constraints” reveal that India’s campaign is less about addressing authentic labor shortages and more about forcing open new markets, despite legitimate concerns about protecting local jobs, wages and standards. The myth of a “global labor gap” collapses under the weight of these realities. This is a top-down, state-directed effort to pressure other governments, dismantle safeguards and secure a permanent outflow of Indian workers regardless of the damage done to American and Western communities.
Every time a visa barrier is lowered or a new guest worker program is launched, it opens the door for India to embed even more of its surplus labor in Western economies. But the ambitions don’t stop with white-collar tech jobs. India’s leaders are playing a much longer and more aggressive game, openly targeting blue-collar visa categories like H-2A and H-2B, sectors that have long provided stability for American families and local communities.
Their policy documents make this clear: India’s strategy is to steadily lobby for the removal of visa caps, to institutionalize so-called “circular migration” so Indian workers can cycle through U.S. jobs indefinitely and to push for changes in immigration law that make Indian labor the default option for both high- and low-skill roles. This is not a temporary workforce solution; it’s a step-by-step plan to permanently transform the American labor market in ways that serve India’s interests while sidelining American workers at every level.
Policy capture and economic sabotage
India’s GATI scheme to embed India into the global workforce requires a sweeping strategy of policy capture, deliberate shaping of how lawmakers, corporations and the public perceive migration. The entire narrative is engineered to favor India’s rise while hastening America’s decline. Indian leaders frame guest worker programs as the answer to future global labor needs, pushing the idea that “well-structured migration pathways” are essential for prosperity and economic stability in developed nations.
At the core of this strategy is India’s ambition to permanently rewrite global immigration rules, eroding long-standing safeguards so Indian workers can move freely into any sector or geography. The GATI initiative drives credentialing schemes, industry lobbying and bilateral “skilling” agreements all calculated to tip the scales against American workers while outsourcing firms, global tech giants and staffing agencies reap the profits. Every new “talent pipeline” means more Americans displaced, more U.S. wages depressed and more control handed to foreign interests.
To justify this export of labor, Indian officials point to “strategic competition” and post-pandemic “insecurities,” persuading foreign governments that hiring Indian workers is not just practical, but necessary. GATI’s approach combines aggressive advocacy, public messaging and deep partnerships to push migration frameworks that put Indian worker mobility at the center of global workforce planning.
What’s unfolding isn’t just labor mobility, it’s a foreign government influencing policy and regulatory narratives in every high-income economy. India’s labor export lobby sidesteps U.S. legislative oversight and the will of American citizens, cutting direct deals with agencies, corporations and universities. Indian workers, bankrolled by government and recruitment infrastructure, are imported into U.S. jobs at every level.
By pointing to “strategic competition among powers” and “insecurities from the COVID experience,” to justify this export of labor as both necessary and beneficial in a rapidly changing, competitive and uncertain world, pushing foreign governments to believe that hiring Indian workers is not only practical, but also a safeguard against future shocks.
GATI’s approach combines policy advocacy, partnerships and public messaging to encourage the adoption of migration frameworks that prioritize the mobility of Indian workers. Through this strategy, GATI is actively seeking to shape both international discussion and national policies on guest worker programs, aiming to make the movement of Indian labor a central part of future global workforce planning.
These statements and goals provide insight into how GATI operates not just as a labor mobility platform, but as an organized effort to influence migration narratives and regulatory approaches in high-income economies worldwide. What’s unfolding is nothing less than policy capture on a global scale. India’s labor export lobby circumvents U.S. legislative oversight and the will of American citizens by cutting direct deals with U.S. agencies, corporations and universities.
As American companies outsource everything from recruitment to onboarding to Indian partners, foreign nationals are funneled into critical roles across tech, healthcare, engineering and more, frequently at the direct expense of U.S. citizens. Accreditation standards are diluted. Worker protections are eroded. The playing field is tilted.
America’s future: At a crossroads
India’s GATI initiative does not represent an invitation for partnership, it serves as a stark warning. As Indian leaders openly coordinate, lobby and strategize to gain a foothold in U.S. job markets, too many American officials remain silent or, worse, actively complicit. Every so-called “strategic migration partnership” and each new visa pipeline laid is another brick in the wall separating American families from their own economic future.
What America is experiencing is not a collaborative “global solution,” that benefits Americans, not when American jobs, wealth and opportunities are being redirected to a foreign-backed workforce and the government orchestrating it. India’s labor export machine is not about uplifting the world, it is about securing an economic advantage and it is at the expense of American workers, one job, one paycheck and one policy change at a time.
The stakes could not be higher. This is not a tale of isolated layoffs or routine workforce shifts, but a deliberate, foreign-led transformation of the U.S. labor market. It is sold as progress but experienced as loss in every community facing layoffs, stagnant wages and vanishing careers. Each time an American worker is replaced by a lower-paid Indian “guest worker,” it marks another victory for India’s national agenda and another defeat for the American middle class.
Unless action is taken, this pattern will only accelerate. American laws, corporations and policymakers risk becoming tools for India’s economic ascent while the American dream is steadily outsourced and rewritten. The nation must demand that its leaders defend the interests of the American people by rejecting foreign lobbying, putting an end to corporate collusion that enables mass visa fraud and restoring a workforce system that prioritizes American citizens in their own country.
The choice is clear. Either the United States reclaims its labor market, its laws, and its future, or the nation will continue down a path where its greatest export is its own prosperity. History will not be kind to those who allowed this nation to be given away. Now is the time to draw the line: America first, in every job, every industry, and every decision. Otherwise, America’s children will no longer compete with the “world” for the American dream, because that dream will belong to India.
