The Morning: A hiring binge abroad

Plus, the government group chat fallout, protests in Gaza and a Greenland reading list.

View in browser|nytimes.com March 26, 2025 Good morning. Today you'll hear from our colleague Alex Travelli, who reported from Bengaluru about what American companies are doing in India. We're also covering the group chat fallout, protests in Gaza and a Greenland reading list. At the Pure Storage office in Bengaluru, India. Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times India's hiring binge By Alex Travelli I cover business and economics in South Asia. The biggest companies in the United States are on a hiring spree in India. They are building hundreds of overseas office parks. These aren't call centers — they're offices for Indian professionals employed by global companies to perform advanced tasks that, not long ago, Americans would have carried out. There are already 1,800 of these centers, and the rate of growth is doubling. They will soon employ two million Indians. President Trump wants to restore American manufacturing. He is preparing to impose tariffs on India, a move that he says will bring jobs back and close a $46 billion trade deficit. But tariffs reduce trade by making goods more expensive; they don't affect services or offshoring, the practice of hiring workers overseas. Visa restrictions are equally irrelevant. The roles at these new centers are not for immigrants. They're for people who want to stay in India and work for American companies. Today's newsletter is about a new kind of offshore office park. Here, Indian workers are doing the kind of jobs that American workers envy — for American companies. We'll cover the firms that are building them and the professionals who now staff them. Office space, then and now Workers in Bengaluru.  Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times In the 1990s, banks and big tech companies realized they could send jobs to India, where wages are just a fraction of those paid in the United States. Many of these were positions Americans didn't want to fill. Sweaty youngsters piled into rooms in the middle of the night to help American customers rebook their flights or learn whether warranties had expired. Now the roles are more advanced, and the people holding them often have graduate degrees. Workers are analyzing medical scans, writing marketing pitches, balancing budgets and designing state-of-the-art microchips — the kind of work that used to put Americans in the top tax brackets. It's not just happening here. Japanese and British firms have set up offices in places like Mexico and Poland. But most of the multinationals are American, and most of these new centers are in India. Why white-collar jobs move America is reducing immigration, and its working-age population is shrinking. It's harder than ever for companies to hire skilled workers. But the talent pool is nearly bottomless in India, which churns out roughly 10 times as many engineering degrees as the United States every year. So all kinds of companies are converging on six English-speaking cities in India. They include huge firms like Cisco and Target, which has a Bengaluru campus roughly the size of its Minneapolis headquarters. Bank of America is in Chennai. Hundreds of smaller companies have rushed in elsewhere, too. A third of the companies in the Fortune 500 have centers like these across the country, according to the American Chamber of Commerce in India. Workers there are managing publicity for new cellphone companies, developing apps, writing programs to detect fraud and, of course, hiring more employees for the same centers. I met one sight-impaired employee who was designing an interface that blind Americans will use to weigh and stamp packages. The pandemic sped up this transition because remote work made national borders irrelevant. Paroma Chatterjee, the country's chief executive of Revolut, an online banking company that started in Britain, said that Covid had showed the fallacy of tethering a job to a place. In 2021, when Chatterjee and her colleagues at Revolut hired their first seven people in India, they couldn't believe how adroit the newbies were. Same with the next seven. New hires were excelling in finance, marketing, engineering and even H.R. "Why shouldn't we get this quality of talent, in India, to help us build out products for the rest of our various markets across the world?" she said her colleagues wondered. The employees are ambitious, and they want to climb the ranks at American-based companies. They devise business plans and make decisions that affect operations around the world. The greatest difficulty, workers told me, is the time zone: It's a pain to coordinate Zoom calls when California is twelve and a half hours behind India. What happens next Trump may one day retaliate against American companies hiring service workers abroad. Some firms won't brag about it for fear of inviting a backlash. But it's unclear what could disrupt them: All of Trump's levies so far focus on imports and don't touch this part of the economy. Maybe Trump won't notice. These high-wage, education-intensive positions aren't the manufacturing jobs he promised to bring back. Related: I spoke to many of these workers and their bosses for a story The Times published this morning. THE LATEST NEWS Group Chat Fallout At the White House. Doug Mills/The New York Times Trump said yesterday that no classified information had appeared in a military planning group chat that had inadvertently included the editor in chief of The Atlantic. Former national security officials said they were skeptical of Trump's claim, considering the life-or-death nature of the operation, which involved airstrikes on rebels in Yemen. Trump's national security adviser, Michael Waltz, had added the journalist to the chat. But Trump absolved Waltz of blame and instead smeared the journalist as a "sleazebag." At a Senate hearing, the administration's spy chiefs — Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe — shrugged off the seriousness of the security lapse. Democrats have called for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to resign. Hegseth's first few months at the Pentagon have been rocky. See annotated messages from the group chat, a list of officials in the chat and a guide to everything else you need to know. The Daily interviewed the Atlantic editor, Jeffrey Goldberg. Listen here. Immigration An appeals court allowed the U.S. to pause admission of new refugees, but it also ordered the government to admit thousands of people granted refugee status before January. A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop attempts to deport a Columbia student and legal permanent resident who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Foreign visitors are worried about feeling unsafe in America. Some are rethinking their travel or work plans. More on the Trump Administration Vice President JD Vance said he would join his wife, Usha, and other Trump officials on their trip to Greenland this week. The Senate confirmed Martin Makary to the lead the F.D.A., and Jay Bhattacharya as director of the National Institutes of Health. Both are critics of the medical establishment. T​rump targeted another law firm, Jenner & Block, with an executive order. The firm had hired a lawyer who worked on Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation. The president also signed an order that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections. Trump pardoned Devon Archer, a former business associate of Hunter Biden who testified in Republicans' investigation into the Biden family. Archer had been convicted in a fraud case. The Trump administration barred 80 more firms, mostly from China, from buying American technology because of national security concerns. War in Ukraine Ukraine and Russia agreed to stop fighting in the Black Sea, the White House said, though some details are unsettled. American intelligence agencies said in a report that Russia remained a potential threat to the U.S. More International News A rally in northern Gaza. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Palestinians in Gaza, in a rare show of public dissent, protested against Hamas. "We've had enough of the war, destruction and killing," one demonstrator said. Wildfires in South Korea have killed at least 24 people and destroyed buildings, including two ancient Buddhist temples. Sudan's military bombed a crowded market, killing at least 54 people, according to local monitoring groups, which said the attack was most likely a war crime. Other Big Stories The cost of eggs is hurting mom-and-pop restaurants. Four eateries shared their monthly egg budget. U.S. consumer confidence fell to its lowest level in four years. Americans appear anxious about what Trump's policies mean for their finances. Some House Democrats have called their party spineless. They said they wanted to try a populist economic pitch to voters. Opinions Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi gave up their positions to clear the way for new leadership in Congress. Chuck Schumer should follow their example, Mariel Garza argues. Young liberal voters haven't shifted to the right. Many simply didn't turn out in November because they didn't agree with Kamala Harris's views, Neil Gross writes. Here is a column by Thomas Friedman on the future of A.I. A subscription to match the variety of your interests. News. Games. Recipes. Product reviews. Sports reporting. A New York Times All Access subscription covers all of it and more. Subscribe today. MORNING READS In the Solomon Islands. Matthew Abbott for The New York Times Solomon Islands: Residents are hunting dolphins to make enough money to move off an island sinking in rising seas. Spring break: New York's elite high schoolers go to a luxury resort in the Bahamas to sunbathe, network and (legally) drink. Most clicked yesterday: For the second day in a row, the most popular link was 18 things you didn't know your iPhone could do. Lives Lived: The federal judge Michael Boudin forged an independent path on the bench, though his rulings may have rankled his famously left-leaning family. He died at 85. SPORTS Track and field: The sport's governing body will introduce mandatory DNA sex testing for athletes entering female competitions. N.F.L.: The New York Giants signed Russell Wilson to be their starting quarterback this season, just a week after agreeing to terms with Jameis Winston. N.B.A.: Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart both recorded triple-doubles for the New York Knicks in the team's win over the Mavericks. ARTS AND IDEAS In Nuuk, Greenland. Ivor Prickett for The New York Times We at The Morning can't stop reading about Greenland. Trump says he wants to buy it from Denmark. The Vances will travel there Friday. The Times has spent years covering the territory. Here are some of our favorite stories. Travel: Here's what you should do on a trip to Nuuk, Greenland's capital. Q. and A.: A geologist discusses Greenland's ancient past. Lens: These photos show life in a remote northern settlement of 250 people. Television: The fourth season of the Danish series "Borgen" focuses on a geopolitical crisis brewing in Greenland. Soccer: Greenland crowns its national champion in the shortest season on earth, a single week of matches, injuries and controversies. See the games at the edge of the world. Trailblazers: Erik the Red settled the island in the 10th century. Researchers theorize that crystals called sunstones aided Viking navigation in heavy clouds or fog. Archives: In 1979, Greenlanders voted on home rule, which removed control of their daily affairs from the Danish Parliament. The Times was there to report on it. More on culture Karis Dadson Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times Millions of people online have watched videos of a California teenager's steely gaze. She shows pigs at livestock competitions. "Signal might be a good app for you and me and our local drug dealer, but it's not for the Pentagon to plan wars on," Ronny Chieng of "The Daily Show" said. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Ghazalle Badiozamani for The New York Times Prepare protein-rich cottage cheese egg bites for busy mornings. Read these books to heal from trauma. Pack your toiletries better. Improve your laundry skills. GAMES Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangrams were triviality, trivially and virality. And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for the Morning newsletter from The New York Times, or as part of your New York Times account. To stop receiving The Morning, unsubscribe. 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