India market timing undermines claim tied to US PERM action

A social-media claim that a US move against eight technology companies caused an Indian market crash conflicts with the trading timetable: the local market had already closed before Washington announced the restrictions.

Anthony D'Esposito, Inspector General of the US Department of Labor, replied “Ruh roh” to a post by commentator Benny Johnson on X. Johnson said Indian shares had “completely collapsed” because the administration had suspended Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro, HCL, Capgemini, Microsoft and Adobe from the PERM labor-certification program.

A Community Note attached to Johnson’s post pointed out that trading in India had ended hours before the US announcement on Oct. 8. That timing does not support the claim that the announcement caused the same-day decline. D'Esposito’s brief reply did not state that he had verified Johnson’s explanation, but users criticized it as lending the claim visibility.

PERM is a step in many employment-based green-card cases. Employers generally need Labor Department certification that qualified US workers are not available for a role and that hiring a foreign worker would not harm US wages or working conditions. The reported suspension concerns the program’s processing for the named companies, rather than an automatic termination of employees’ jobs or visas.

Indian benchmark indexes fell on Thursday amid several pressures, including higher crude prices, the Reserve Bank of India’s rate increase and foreign investor outflows, according to Indian financial coverage. The Sensex and Nifty recovered in early trading on Friday, Oct. 9. The Sensex gained 292 points to 71,876.10, while the Nifty rose 84.60 points to 22,310.40.

TCS shares rose more than 4% after the company reported quarterly net profit of 13,884 crore rupees, up about 15% year on year. Infosys, HCL Tech and Tech Mahindra also advanced in early trading.