http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/29/technology/h1b-visa-premium-processing/index.html
Starting on April 3, people will be able to submit H-1B visa petitions for the new fiscal year. These visas are in high demand last years cap of 85,000 visas was reached within the first week of opening. Last year also saw over 200,000 petitions filled out in the first week. These visas are highly coveted by tech firms as it seen as a "pathway for skilled workers to work in the U.S." This years application process will be rather stressful due to the current political attitudes toward immigration.
Applicants can pay a fee of $1,225 in order to ensure that their application is reviewed in the first 15 days, if selected in the lottery. 59% of all applications last year paid for the premium fee, but it was announced that this option would not be included in 2017. Applications that did not include the premium fee can take up to 8 months to be reviewed and this freeze on premium fees is said to speed up the overall process.
It will be interesting to see how the current political climate regarding immigration will affect applicants attempting to enter the U.S, and whether or not this has an impact on U.S firms attempting to acquire workers from other countries. Trump's views and polices towards immigration will certainly not help the process and will add more stress to the application process.
5 comments:
This is really a terrible information for international students. As far as I know, due to the more strict H-1B policy, actually less companies are will to assign an offer to international students. The 8-month reviewing period gonna make many qualified candidates to lose their jobs because they cannot come to work until they get their H-1B but the companies cannot leave the position open and just wait for 8 months! This will cause students flow out of America and choose to work back home or in other countris.
It is a shame that, for international students, finding a job in America and applying for an H-1B visa will be more luck based, rather than money-based, which I find to be interesting. In a sense it is more "fair" to not have applicants pay a large fee to guarentee that they will be looked at in a certain timeframe, but this also makes it harder to apply for and secure a job.
It is interesting to look at this as a restriction on labor market movements. This could lead to a serious loss in growth. Since a lot of the skills that were previously coveted by these firms (usually in the tech and research-based industries) require high levels of education and training, there may not be employable American substitutes immediately. This could lead to a drop in productivity and overall growth. The market had found an efficient solution to deal with this and government regulations are the deterring force here.
After Trump became the president, the following series of polices toward immigration are becoming more and more strict. The new policies make the situation for international students to find a job even tougher, which will lead to a decrease in supply of labor and a serious loss in economic growth. It is not a wise movement to protect American people finding a job at the cost of efficiency.
Fortunately, the Trump administration missed the opportunity to reform the H-1B visa program for foreign workers for this year. Applications for this year’s batch of visas open Monday, April 3rd. There will be 85,000 awarded from an applicant pool that could exceed last year's 230,000.
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