Demand for the H1B work visa has outstripped supply with the US getting enough applications to reach the statutory cap of 65,000 within the first five days, for the third consecutive year.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will now conduct a lottery system to allocate the visa, which is highly popular among IT off-shoring firms from countries like India.
Major usersIn fact, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro and other frontline IT firms are major users of the H1Bs, a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.
“The whole issue is to do with the shortage of STEM (Scientists, Technology professionals, Engineers, and Mathematicians) workers in the sector.
“There has been strong across-the-board demand which has been necessitated by the shortage of skilled workers. What we are seeing is not an exception but a reflection of that aspect,” said Shivendra Singh, Vice-President (Global Trade Development) at IT industry body Nasscom.
According to Ganesh Natarajan, Chief Executive Officer of Zensar Technologies, the quick usage of the H1B quota shows the confidence of the $146-billion IT industry in the growth anticipated for this year.
“With the US economy on a sound growth trajectory one can expect it to be the driver of industry growth this year,” Natarajan said.
A legislative proposal in 2013 to raise the annual H1B cap to 1,10,000 didn’t succeed, as the US Congress did not agree on a proposed overhaul of the nation’s immigration system.
The US makes 65,000 H1B visas available each fiscal year under its base cap, with an additional 20,000 set aside for advanced degree graduates of US universities.
On April 1 each year, it accepts visa petitions for the fiscal year that begins October 1. Over the past few years Indian IT companies have voiced concerns that they are not getting US work visas for employees because of increasing protectionism.
Demand for another 20,000 H-1Bs, allocated to foreign nationals with advanced degrees from US universities, has also bettered supply. The USCIS has said that all unselected advanced degree petitions will then become part of the random selection process for the 65,000 general limit.