From the recent figures from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, it can be concluded that the popularity of the once much desired H1-B visa is gradually diminishing over the recent times. The nation’s economy that is yet to recover from the recession may be the reason behind the situation that professionals are not that willing to immigrate under the H1-B visa category of late.
With the unemployment rate still at its high, the demand for the H1-B visa has been declining prominently since last year. Every year, the United States sets a limited cap of the H1-B visas for different countries. As for India, the cap was lowered to a considerable number in the year 2004. As of now, the number of available H1-B visas for India under the regular category is 65,000 and 20,000 for individuals with Master’s Degrees from American educational institutes.
In most fiscal years, what happened is that the number of petitions for the H1-B visas exceeded the number of visas that was actually issued (cap) within the few days of a new financial year. But, of late it seems that the visa category is losing its appeal among Indians. For instance, the number of applications for fiscal year 2009-10 exceeded the cap only towards the end of December 2009. Similarly for fiscal year 2011, as of third week of April the US Citizenship and Immigration Services received only around 16,000 H1-B visa applications for the regular category and about 6,700 petitions under the post-graduate category.
The current trend clearly indicates that Indians are not as enthusiastic about immigrating to the US under the H1-B visa category and work there. According to experts, without a boost in the US economy it would be difficult to reach the granted cap for this fiscal year!