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The U.S. has re-opened the applications for H-2B visas to fill temporary non-agricultural positions.
The congressionally mandated annual cap for H-2B visas sought by semi-skilled Indian workers is 66,000, and the government has issued only 40,640 this fiscal year, which ends Sep 30.
"Because of the low visa issuance rate, (US Citizenship and Immigration Services, USCIS) is reopening the filing period to allow employers to file additional petitions for qualified H-2B temporary foreign non-agricultural workers”, the source said.
The H-1B visas allow foreign nationals to work in U.S for a short period of projects. Whereas, the H-2B visa enable the US nationals to bring foreign nationals to the US to fill temporary non-agricultural positions for which there is a shortage of workers.
The requirement of labour in the areas like construction, health care, landscaping, food service and hospitality can be filled by H-2B visas.
Because of ongoing recession the demand of H-2B visas has been reduced, before, the demand was high.
From past two years, the demand of employers trying to bring foreigners to work permanently in the US has also declined.
The demand for popular H-1B visas among Indian techies has gown down this year.
Till now, USCIS has received approximately 45,000 H-1B visa applications.
The USCIS figures shows the declination in the number of employer-sponsored for work-based green cards applications received by the government, the number is just half of the applications received in previous years.
There were almost 235,000 applications submitted in fiscal 2007, almost 104,000 the following year, and fewer than 36,000 through the first eight months of fiscal 2009.
According to “Department of Labour”, in the fiscal year 2007, most of the applications came from India, Mexico, the Philippines, China and Korea.
