A US immigration attorney believes that the number of foreign nationals applying for skilled H-1B visas will continue to keep rising in 2014.
Speaking to CNBC, Marc Klein, an immigration attorney withThompson & Knight, said that he expects application numbers for the skilled visas to exceed the number seen for 2012 (124,000) and 2013 (134,000). In total, he expects 160,000 applications to be made for the 85,000 available visas when the filing season opens on 1st April.
“It just shows the U.S. still lags behind other countries when it comes to an emphasis on educating American-born students in computer science, math and other areas,” said Klein, who handles H-1B visa requests.
All H-1B visa applications are placed into one of two computerised lotteries. Those with a Masters degree are listed for the first 20,000 openings out of the 85,000, and if they are not selected then they are placed into the main lottery for 65,000 spots.
Some of America’s leading companies, including IBM, Deloitte Consulting and Microsoft are among the biggest users of H-1B visas.
Last year, technology company Infosys submitted the most Labour Condition Applications (LCAs) – which companies must apply for in order to bring foreign workers in on H-1B visa – making almost 16,000 such applications.
For more emigration advice, please visit http://www.emergate2.co.uk/US