A day after a US official accused top Indian IT firms TCS and Infosys of unfairly cornering the lion's share of H-1B visas by putting extra tickets in the lottery system, Indian IT industry body Nasscom has rebutted the claims and contesting the numbers has said that Indian software firms accounted for less than 20% of the 65,000 work permits issued annually.
While, the White House official cited Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as examples of companies using a large share of H-1B visas through the lottery system, Nasscom said that these companies received 7,504 approved H-1B visas, accounting for only 8.8% of the H-1B visas in FY15. The IT body further said that only 6 of the top 20 H-1B recipients were Indian companies
Nasscom backed its counter with US data, claiming that all Indian IT companies cumulatively accounted for less than 20% of the total approved H-1B visas, adding that there was documented shortfall between the supply and demand for computer science majors in the US workforce, especially in cutting-edge fields such as cloud, big data, and mobile computing.
The recent restrictive policies of the US government on the H-1B visa programme has impacted the number of applications. The number of applicants seeking H-1B visas dropped by 16% for 2017-18, with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) receiving 199,000 petitions for the year; applications are received in April to be processed for the current year. The US Department of Labor estimates that there will be 2.4 million unfilled STEM jobs by 2018, with 50% of these vacancies in IT-related positions.
MoneyWorks4Me is a SEBI-registered Investment Adviser (IA) dedicated to helping investors build long-term wealth through transparent, research-driven, conflict-free guidance. Founded in 2008, we started our journey as a Research Analyst (RA), providing deep fundamental analysis, intrinsic value insights, and long-term investing frameworks for Indian equities. In 2017, we transitioned to a full-fledged SEBI-registered Investment Adviser, strengthening our commitment to acting as a fiduciary—always putting the investor’s interest first.
To become India’s most trusted, research-powered fiduciary advisory platform—where every investor, regardless of experience, can make calm, confident, and well-reasoned investment decisions.
MoneyWorks4Me ensures this through: