Wednesday, May 27, 2009

H-1B visas out of vogue?

The scramble for H1B work visas has finally ended. Till last year these visas were issued after a computerised draw of lots, but recession has meant that many Indian companies, too, have put in very few applications for these visas this year.

Last year, the entire lot of H1B Work Visas issued by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) was exhausted in two days.
But 50 days since the gates opened for H1B Visas on April 1 this year, nearly 20,000 slots are still open against a cap of 65,000 visas.
Industry major Infosys, which normally takes a chunk of these visas, has applied for just a fraction as compared to last year.
T V Mohandas Pai, HR director at Infosys said, "Visa applications are based on need. Due to the recession, business has come down and therefore the applications for visas."

Most IT companies agree that H1B visa is purely a function of demand. A similar slump in 2001-02 after the dot com bubble saw a cap of 1,95,000 visas left unutilized and with growth rates revised downwards, companies are also trying to reduce employee headcount overseas.

Madhavi Goyal, director of HR at Global Logic, said, “A lot of people who are working on H1B visa today have decided to come back home.”
However, Nasscom denies that the lack of demand had anything to do with Obama administration's anti-outsourcing ramblings.
Ameet Nivarkar, VP of Nasscom, said, “We have been maintaining that H1B visa is a trade related issue and it is not a visa to bring in cheap labour to the US.”

Well, as each H1B visa costs $3000-5000 per applicant, in these recessionary times it’s always good for companies to use their money more productively.

Source: NDTV Profit

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