H1B change would help big tech firms
Proposal aims to boost number of highly educated foreign workers
Major Silicon Valley tech companies would win and outsourcing companies would lose under a change to the way the lottery for the H-1B visa is run.
The administration of President Donald Trump plans to boost the number of highly educated foreign workers getting the H-1B, which is intended for jobs requiring specialized knowledge and a bachelor’s degree or higher. It appears the administration intends to raise the bar on education levels for H-1B recipients.
The new lottery process is to be announced this month, the White House said in a scheduling document for new federal rules. A public comment period is expected to follow. It’s unclear whether changes would be finalized in time for next year’s H-1B lottery in the spring.
“It seems like in an era where we, and I believe rightfully so, beat up on the administration for a bunch of things,” said Harvard Business School professor William Kerr, “This is one that you’re like, ‘Hey, I think that makes sense.’”
The H-1B has become a flashpoint in the immigration debate and a target for Trump, particularly over use of the visa by outsourcers, which rake in the lion’s share of H-1Bs, mostly for bachelor’s degree holders. Heavily relied upon by large technology companies, the visa is condemned by critics as a mechanism for supplanting American workers with cheaper foreign labor.
New H-1B visas are capped at 85,000 per year, which includes 20,000 workers with a master’s or higher. In recent years, applications have vastly
outnumbered available visas.
Federal documents did not make clear how the lottery might be changed, other than to say it may include “a modified selection process” and that the new system will boost the odds of applicants who have a master’s degree or higher from a U.S. university.
However the government tweaks the lottery, its stated intention to prioritize higher-educated workers would help big tech firms like Google, Apple and Facebook — which tend to obtain significantly more H-1B visas for employees with master’s degrees or higher than they do for workers with bachelor’s degrees, said Howard University professor Ronil Hira, who has argued in testimony before Congress several times in favor of adjusting the H-1B system to favor advanced-degree holders.
Facebook declined to comment on the lottery change. Google and Apple did not respond to requests for comment.
Outsourcing and staffing companies such as Infosys, Cognizant, Tata, Wipro and Deloitte tend to obtain more visas for bachelor’s degree holders, according to data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration. At large outsourcing firms, many of the higher-educated H-1B recipients have degrees from foreign universities, mostly in India, a category of workers that would not get a boost from the planned change.