FOUR H-1B MYTHS

With this H-1B season having drawn to an early close (due to USCIS receiving an overwhelming number of petitions), and with legislative immigration reform still pending, the time seems opportune to dispel a number of myths about the program.

First, some general facts: the H-1B program was created in 1990 to allow U.S. employers to hire up to 65,000 foreign workers (plus 20,000 more with advanced degrees--starting in 2004) in specialty occupations (i.e., typically high-skill work) for a period of three years (renewable once--with shorter extensions available for workers with pending employment green card applications).

So far, about half of all H-1B workers seem to have come from China and India alone. And about half lived in the United States under a different status (often as students) before obtaining their H-1B visa.

The numerical cap (from which institutions of higher education, not-for-profit organizations and government-research organizations became exempt in 2000) was temporarily increased to 115,000 in fiscal years 1999 and 2000, and to 195,000 in fiscal years 2001, 2002 and 2003 (the only time when supply exceeded demand).

Systems analysis and programming occupations tend to account for over one-third of all petitions in any given year. And, more generally, STEM occupations tend to account for almost two-thirds of all petitions. Between five and ten percent are in higher education (mostly biology and life sciences).

Although the demand for H-1Bs tends to be distributed across a large variety of employers, nonetheless, a few large tech and consulting (or staffing) companies account for a disproportionate share (though less than 20%). They include US-based companies such as Microsoft and Deloitte, but also Indian companies such as Tata and Infosys.

The largest geographical concentration of H-1B employees is in the New York metro area (which, perhaps surprisingly, boasts numbers as high as the three great California tech centers combined). For more information, read this 2012 Brookings Institution report.

Now for the myths: