President Obama’s speech is a recognition that jobs cannot be created by protectionism but by a growth in trade, said Som Mittal, president of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom). The message for India’s outsourcing industry in the speech was very positive, he added.

India’s top outsourcers like Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys Technologies, have posted strong revenue and profit growth in the quarter ended Sept. 30, and are adding staff by the thousands.

Besides the Ohio decision, the Indian outsourcing industry was hit earlier this year by a $600 million [m] measure for increased surveillance of the U.S.-Mexican border to prevent illegal immigrants. The funds for the bill, which was signed into law by President Obama, are to be raised from an increase in visa fees paid by tech workers brought into the country by companies with more than 50 staff, and in which more than 50 percent of the staff are on these visas.

Indian outsourcers, who send a large number of staff to customer sites in the U.S., were saddled as a result with an increase in visa costs. But they were more alarmed by the threat of increased protectionism from the U.S.

President Obama’s own remarks earlier this year fueled this fear. While proposing to reform the U.S. tax system for companies earning profits abroad, he alarmed Indian outsourcers in May last year when he made a reference to jobs getting created by U.S. companies in Bangalore, the hub of India’s outsourcing industry. The tax code is broken as it's a tax code "that says you should pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, New York", the president said.