India's share in US H1-B visas hit a low of a decade last year

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. In 2024, Indians received 150,647 H-1B visas and 18.578 L-1 visas in the year ended September 2024, which accounted for 68.6% and 25.9% of these US government-released work visas, according to a note of Morgan Stanley on September 21. Summary data from the US Bureau of Consular Affairs show that Indians issued 68.6% of the 219,659 H-1B visas in 2024 (October-September), their lowest share in a decade. US President Donald Trump has accused Indians of abusing the H-1B visa system and announcing a one-time $ 100,000 fee on new visas from next year, a nearly 100-fold jump from the current level. However, the visa numbers tell a different story over the past year. Data from the US Bureau of Consular Affairs show that Indians issued 68.6% of the 219,659 H-1B visas in 2024 (October-September), their lowest share in a decade. In 2024, Indians received 150,647 H-1B visas and 18.578 L-1 visas in the year ended September 2024, which accounted for 68.6% and 25.9% of these US government-released work visas, according to a note of Morgan Stanley on September 21. A mint analysis shows that the percentage of H-1B visas received by Indians is at the lowest since 2014, while the percentage of L-1 visas that Indians received over the past financial year is at a five-year low. H-1B visas enable highly skilled non-immigrants to work in the US temporarily and are valid for three years, with a renewal option available up to six years. The L-1 category is designed for management and employees with ‘specialized knowledge’ and is valid for five-seven years. Last year, the US released a total of 291,458 H-1B and L-1 category visas, with 58.1% going to Indians, which was the lowest share in work visas since Trump was first appointed in January 2017. The numbers reflect a change in strategy for Indian firms. “Over the years, Indian and India-centric companies operating in the US have significantly reduced their dependencies of H-1B visas and gradually increased their local appointment,” Nasscom, the Technology Sector Association, said in a statement last week. On September 19, Trump signed an executive order requiring companies to pay $ 100,000 annually for each new foreign worker under the H-1B visa, higher than about $ 1000. The White House later made clear that this one-time fee would only apply to new applications. The Trump administration introduced the visa fee and said the use of H-1B visas is being exploited. “The H-1B-not-immigrant visa program was created to bring temporary workers to the US to perform additional, high-skilled functions, but it was deliberately used to replace US workers with lower paid, lower skilled labor,” the executive order of information technology (it) to ” Homemade IT -Ooutsourcers are users of the program as they send workers through these visas to customers. However, Nasscom received a small part of their total workforce, Nasscom said, adding that these businesses had increased their rent in the US. “H-1B workers for the Top 10 Indian and Indian centered businesses are less than 1% of their entire employee base. Given this job, we only expect a marginal impact for the sector,” the declaration of the industry body states on September 22. India’s Ten Top -it Services -Outsourcers, including Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, Infosys Ltd, and HCl Technologies Ltd, have between 30,000 and 620,000 people each. Analysts consider the impact of visa fees on Indian businesses as negligible for the short term. “Prima facie, new developments around H-1B visas look negative; however, we see a minimal impact on the short term,” said Morgan Stanley analysts Gaurav Rateria, Sulabh Govila, Sheshtha Chopra and Sakshi Rana, in the note above. However, investors do not take such views wholeheartedly, and the country’s ten largest IT services businesses have dumped almost 8% of their market cap during the week. Some analysts believe it can look out for outsources to relocate their employees who are on H-1B visas. “(W) believes that IT services enterprises will have to work with clients to move H1-B workers in the US to other geographical areas, including India or Canada, if they remain on active projects,” said Keith Bachman, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, in a September 25 note. “That’s why we think this will be a challenge that all providers of IT services have to work through.” Bachman added that the impact may not be felt evenly felt. ‘For Accenture, as the management indicated, the impact in our faith is less substantial, compared to the Indian presenters. We believe that H1-B visa mix for the Indian suppliers is closer to 25% of the US workforce … ‘Catch all the corporate news and updates on live mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates and live business news. More Topics #H1B Visa #H1-B #US Visa #india #news Read Next Story