H-1B Visa Extension Could be Discontinued
Recently new proposal from the US president regarding the H-1B visa may ban extending H-1B visa. This visa is granted mostly to Indian citizens working in USA mainly in the IT sector. The visa allows the holders to work in the USA for 2 terms by 3 years and an extension is granted while the holder is waiting to be green card if he/she applies.
If this proposal is approved it will affect about 1 million people waiting for their green card to be granted. Most of the holders are Indians who have families and houses in United States. This decision comes after many changes earlier in 2017 regarding H-1B visa. In the first quarter of the year the visa program was stopped for some time. This act caused a lot of problems to IT and High Tech corporations. It will definitely change the way they operate and hire talents. Companies already started the change their approach and hire local talents which is not as cost effective as of until now. Companies are also trying to find young students from universities and teaching them to the latest technologies in order to fill the gap. Seniors from several Indian IT companies confirmed that there are acquisitions coming in order to buy market share as well as talented people. According to experts the attrition rate has gone higher after those changes regarding H-1B visa. It provides more opportunities for the local workforce and people are more willing to look for opportunities.
This regulation change comes as a result of the President’s initiative “Buy American, Hire American”. As a result of that initiative there were many controversial visa changes in 2017. It looks like 2018 will offer even more changes.