Drop of 37% in H-1B visas for 7 cos
5,436 less petitions approved in 2016 compared to previous year
Top seven India-based IT com-panies in the US collective-ly experienced a whopping 37 per cent Drop in Approved H.113 visa peti-tions in 2016 as compared to the previous year, according to a new report that comes amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on the “visa abuse”. The companies experi-enced a drop of 5,936 approved Petitions (37 per cent) in 2016 as compared to the previous year, said a report by the National
Foundation for American Policy — a Washington. based non-profit think-tank. It said that the 9,356 new FHB petitions for the top seven India-based compa-nies approved in fiscal 2016 represent only 0.006 per cent of the US labour force. “While the threat of job loss has
discussing fewer than 10,000 workers in an econo-my that employs long been exagger-ated by critics, it reaches illogical proportions when 160 mil-lion workers nationwide,” the National Foundation for American Policy said in a statement after releas-ing the report. The report comes after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April for tighten-ing the rules of the 1-1-1B visa programme to stop “visa abuses”. Trump said his adminis-tration is going to enforce ‘Hire American’ rules that are designed to protect jobs and wages of workers in the US. The executive order also called upon the Departments of Labour, Justice, Homeland Security, and the state to take action against fraud and abuse of the US’ visa programmes. The number of approved new FHB petitions for TCS declined by 56 per cent from FY 2015 to FY 2016, from 9,674 to 2,090, a drop of 2.634.
Drop in new H-1B visas expected to continue
■ Wipro saw the highest decline in visas approved in FY16
Top seven India-based IT firms in the US collectively experienced a whopping 37 per cent drop in approved H-1B visa peti-tions in 2016 as compared to the previous year, according to a new report that comes amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on the “visa abuse”. For Wipro, the petitions declined by 52 per cent between FY15 and FY16, a drop of 1.605, going from 3,079 to 1,479 approved peti-tions for initial employ. ment during those years. For Infosys, it declined by 16 per cent (or 959 peti-tions), with 2,376 approved H-113 petitions for initial employment in FY16, com-pared to 2,830 in FY15, said the report, which based its research on government data. “The drop in new H-1B visas for India-based companies, which is expected to continue when data are released on cases filed in April 2017 for FY 2018 start dates, is due to industry trends toward digital services such as cloud computing and arti-ficial intelligence, which require fewer workers, and a choice by companies to rely less on visas and to build up their domestic workforces in the US,” the report said. “FHB petitions approved for initial employment in FY16 were filed by employ-ers in April 2016, which means the drop in H-B visa use by these compa-nies is not due to Donald Trump’s election. “In the past, US policy-makers have used the number of visas going to India-based companies as a political or policy reason to propose new immigra-tion restrictions and to not raise the low annual
supply of 1-1-1B visas, which has been exhausted every year for the past 15 fiscal years,” said NFAP executive director Stuart Anderson, former head of policy at the Immigration and Naturalisation Service under President George W Bush. Among the top firms with new fl-1B petitions approved in 2016 were Cognizant (3,999), Infosys (2,376), TCS (2,040). Accenture (1,889), IBM (1,608), Wipro (1,479), Amazon (1,916), Tech Mahindra (1,228), CapGemini (1,164). — PT!
source by , Deccan chronicle
