Bangalore: IT major Infosys Technologies today (June 12, 2004) asserted that the cry in the US against outsourcing of IT work to India is abating since the last three to four months due to creation of nearly one million jobs in the United States.

"If you look at the last three to four months, the sense we get is that the offshoring outsourcing debate is abating and apart from that, in the last three months, the US created close to one million jobs," Infosys Managing Director and CEO Nandan M Nilekani told reporters at the 26th annual general meeting of the Bangalore-based software powerhouse.

Nilekani's assertion comes a day after the US Bureau of Labour Statistics Department in a report said that only 4,633 jobs were moved overseas in the first three months of the year in contrast to the 2,39,361 people who were laid off.

"Only few US jobs are lost because of foreign outsourcing," the report said.

He said the anti-offshoring cry was due to the jobless recovery the US witnessed till the early part of this year.

"The fact that there is a strong job growth of close to a million jobs has also helped to reduce some of the debate on this," Nilekani said.

Infosys in its annual report had feared that though the clamouring against outsourcing is abating to some extent, it has the potential to create an unpredictable regulatory response.

The fear comes ahead of the American Presidential election where the Opposition Democratic candidate John Kerry is fierce opponent of outsourcing to overseas firms.