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37% drop in H1B visas for 7 Indian firms in 2016: Report
Top seven India-based IT companies in the US collectively experienced a whopping 37 per cent drop in approved H-1B visa petitions in 2016 as compared to the previous year, according to a new report that comes amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on the ‘visa abuse.
9,356 H-1B petitions approved in 2016 represent only 0.006% of US labour force
Washington : Top seven India-based IT companies in the US collectively experienced a whopping 37 per cent drop in approved H-1B visa petitions in 2016 as compared to the previous year, according to a new report that comes amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on the ‘visa abuse.’ The companies experienced a drop of 5,436 approved petitions (37 per cent) in 2016 as compared to the previous year, said a report by the National Foundation for American Policy -- a Washington-based non-profit think-tank.
It said that the 9,356 new H-1B petitions for the top seven India-based companies approved in fiscal 2016 represent only 0.006 per cent of the US labour force. “While the threat of job loss has long been exaggerated by critics, it reaches illogical proportions when discussing fewer than 10,000 workers in an economy that employs 160 million workers nationwide,” the National Foundation for American Policy said in a statement after releasing the report.
The report comes after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April for tightening the rules of the H-1B visa programme to stop ‘visa abuses.’ Trump said his administration is going to enforce ‘Hire American’ rules that are designed to protect jobs and wages of workers in the US. The executive order also called upon the Departments of Labour, Justice, Homeland Security, and the state to take action against fraud and abuse of the US’ visa programmes.
According to the report, the number of approved new H-1B petitions for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) declined by 56 per cent from FY 2015 to FY 2016, from 4,674 to 2,040, a drop of 2,634. For Wipro, the petitions declined by 52 per cent between FY 2015 and FY 2016, a drop of 1,605, going from 3,079 to 1,474 approved petitions for initial employment during those years.
