Significantly Less Demand for H-1B Visas
Published: April 15, 2009

In years past, the annual supply of 65,000 H-1B work visas was exhausted within the first week of availability. However, according to a news release issued last week by U.S. Department of Homeland Security Citizenship and Immigration Service, less than 33,000 petitions were received during this same period this year. No doubt, our economic slowdown and reduced job market are at the root of this condition. This means that those employers who are still considering filing H-1B petitions for foreign professional workers actually have a window to proceed … for now. The supply will indeed dry up sooner rather than later.

Interestingly, for the separate annual allotment of 20,000 additional H-1B visas specifically reserved for foreign workers who received graduate level degrees in the U.S., CIS received almost enough petitions to exhaust the supply.

PUBLISHED April 15, 2009 – “IMMIGRATION LAW FORUM”
Copyright © 2009, By Law Offices of Richard Hanus, Chicago, Illinois