No takers for H1B visas ?
By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 13 August 2009, 00:05 IST   |    7 Comments
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No takers for H1B visas ?
Bangalore: The H1B visa programme, is unlikely to reach its cap of 65,000 before the start of the 2010 fiscal with nearly 20,000 vacancies amid the economic downturn. This has happened for the first time in several years that the demand for the visas, which is mostly availed by Indian professionals, has slowed down. Also due to a large number of rejections of H1B petitions, this figure of 20,000 vacancies has remained almost the same for the past two months. Indian IT professionals have been a major beneficiary of H1B visas, figures released in the past have said. An additional 20,000 H1B can also be issued to those foreign professionals, who have masters or higher degree from the U.S. Though the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) received 20,000 petitions, it continues to accept applications in this category. According to the latest figures released by the USCIS approximately 49,000 H1B petitions have been received till August 7. Nearly more than four months after the U.S. immigration agency started accepting petitions for the H1B visas for highly-skilled foreign professionals, it is still looking for nearly 20,000 applications to fill the Congressionally-mandated cap of 65,000. Besides the current economic downturn, also certain provisions in the economic stimulus package, the H1B petitions to the USCIS centres are now coming in ones and twos. The economic stimulus package prevents hiring of foreign workers by companies receiving federal aid money. This is in contrast to the last few years, when the USCIS had to resort to computerized draw of lots as it received petitions outnumbering several times more than the Congressional mandated cap of 65,000 within the first few days after it started receiving H1B applications. In 2007 and 2008, the caps were reached in the first few days itself - April 2 and April 1-5 respectively. In 2007 and 2006, the H1B cap in the general categories were reached on May 26 and July 26 respectively, while in 2005 it was reached on August 10. In 2004, the USCIS had to wait till October 1, before it stopped accepting H1B petitions for the fiscal 2005, while the fiscal year 2004, it took 10 months to reach the cap. However, for the fiscal 2010, the USCIS started receiving H1B petitions from April 1. In the first five working days, it received 42,000 H1B petitions. In the month and half since then, USCIS has received just 7,000 more H1B petitions. According to USCIS, it will continue to accept both cap-subject petitions and advanced degree petitions until a sufficient number of H1B petitions have been received to reach the statutory limits, taking into account the fact that some of these petitions may be denied, revoked, or withdrawn.

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