Month: October 2024

The H-1B program is the largest U.S. temporary work visa program, with a total of approximately 600,000 workers employed by 50,000 employers. The program’s intent is to allow employers to fill labor shortages for jobs that require a college degree, by providing work authorization for migrant workers in fields like accounting, journalism, health and medical, and teaching. Most H-1B workers, however, are employed in occupations like computer systems analysis and software development.

https://www.epi.org/blog/tech-and-outsourcing-companies-continue-to-exploit-the-h-1b-visa-program-at-a-time-of-mass-layoffs-the-top-30-h-1b-employers-hired-34000-new-h-1b-workers-in-2022-and-laid-off-at-least-85000-workers/

We import about 6 million nonimmigrant guest workers per year.

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/AnnualReports/FY2022AnnualReport/FY22_TableI.pdf

The H-1B portion of these nonimmigrant guest worker visas can be seen on the line beginning with a H that says Temporary Worker and Trainee.

As you can see, it runs about 500,000 every year.

These visas are good for an initial 3 years and then can be renewed for an additional three years.

So we have 500,000 times 6 years or 3 million.

Keep in mind that the H-1B has been issued since 1990 so ultimately we have 34 years times 500,000 or about 17 million that have been processed over this time period.

Now these numbers are for H-1B applications.

I have never been able to get anybody to explain to me why a visa is issued for an application if the worker is not coming here to work.

I have also seen many stories showing how when a H-1B loses his job, they convert to student visas or other visas so that they can remain here until they find work again.

The real actual visas issued are under intial applications and continuing applications.

I have been told many times that only 85,000 H-1B approvals per year happen.

But as you will see in this yearbook, the actual initial and continuing approvals mirror the H-1B applications.

You will find this chart on page 5 of the yearbook which can be viewed by clicking on the link below.

OLA_Signed_H-1B_Characteristics_Congressional_Report_FY2023