Despite the onset of an economic recession and the September 11th terrorist attacks, demand by U.S. companies to hire skilled foreign workers reached its highest-ever level in FY2001.
From October 1, 2000 through September 30, 2001, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) received 342,035 H-1B applications. This represents a 14.4% increase over FY2000, when a record 299,046 H-1B applications were received.
Of the 342,035 H-1B applications received, approximately 163,200 were approved against the FY2001 annual limit, or "cap," of 195,000. The remaining 178,835 were either approved but did not apply to the cap, denied, or were pending with the INS as of September 30, 2001.
The H-1B visa is used by U.S. companies to temporarily hire skilled foreign workers to fill positions in the U.S. when qualified domestic workers are unavailable. A majority of H-1B holders are employed in computer- and engineering-related professions, Between October 2000 and September 2001; the number of employees in these two sectors grew by 80,000 positions.
INS spokesperson Eyleen Schmidt believes that one factor contributing to the increase may be a higher demand from companies outside of the technology industry. "Because the tech sector didn´t use all of the H-1B´s allotted under the cap in FY2001, it may have allowed other industries with increasing workforces to petition for a significant number of these visas. Anecdotally, there seemed to be a lot of universities and secondary schools requesting H-1B´s this past fiscal year."
Most likely, demand from outside the technology sector is driving up H-1B use, but there is still a continuing shortage of American technology workers. Even with reports of large-scale layoffs in the tech industry, jobs continue to be created in the sectors that traditionally employ large numbers of skilled foreign workers. The U.S. still does not graduate enough U.S. citizens with the requisite background to meet demand, giving U.S. employers no choice but to look overseas.
Statistics from the U.S. Department of Education show that between 1985 and 1998, just under 372,000 degrees in computer and information science were conferred by American colleges and universities. This represents only a third of the number needed to fill the 1,095,100 positions in the computer industry that typically require specialized degrees: computer programming, integrated systems design, and software development.
As long as there is job creation in areas that require technical skills, there should continue to be a high level of H-1B visa demand. Although there was some job loss in the tech sectors in November, possibly due to the jolt of September 11th, there has been a rebound in terms of positions that were added in December.
Article written by and reprinted with permission from VisaNow.com, provider of online U.S. visa and immigration services. For more information on this or any other U.S. immigration issue, send an e-mail to info@visanow.com.
