Learn key facts about the U.S. H-1B visa program: top nationalities, top employers, and the most common IT occupations of visa holders.
Until President Donald Trump has suspended H-1B visas, this visa program remained one of the most popular among international high-skilled workers.
H-1B is a nonimmigrant visa that allows U.S. employers to sponsor foreign workers to temporarily perform jobs in skilled occupations. These visas are rewarded on a first-come, first-served basis, or through a lottery based on the number of applications submitted to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The duration of stay on an H-1B visa is 3 years, extendable to 6 years.
Which nationalities receive the visas most often
According to analysis by ITShifting.com, almost 72% of all H-1B visas in 2019 were approved for Indians and 13% for the Chinese. These categories of migrants account for 278,491 and 50,609 visas, respectively (including visas that were extended). Canadians come third with 1.2% of visas. All other nationalities are trailing far behind, each having less than 1% of approved visa petitions.
Top companies requesting H-1B visas
About 65% of H-1B visas certified in the first half of 2020 account for the IT sector, with 8 companies out of the top 10 employers that requested H-1B visas being technology corporations (according to Myvisajobs.com data).
Almost 9% of visas (or 15,150) in the first half of 2020 were requested by Cognizant — an American multinational corporation that provides IT services and is headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey. The company’s total number of employees in North America stands at about 46,400 as of 2019.
Google requested 5,188 visas for its international employers. Additionally, six more companies applied for more than 3,000 visas, including Deloitte Consulting, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Amazon Services, Microsoft, and Ernst & Young. Top 10 companies also include Capgemini America and IBM.
Top IT occupations receiving H-1B visas
Software engineers and software developers are the top IT occupations by the number of H-1B visas in the first half of 2020. They account for 7.5 and 5% of visas, respectively.
Senior systems analysts, IT managers, and senior software engineers also make the top 5 occupations, according to the Myvisajobs.com data.
Top comments (0)