The current job market in the US hasn’t been that great for the employee. So far in 2023, more than one lakh employees have been laid off. Employees with H-1B visas have been particularly affected by the layoffs, as they have roughly 60 days to find a new sponsor.
The good news is that a number of tech firms in the United States are now hiring foreign talent. In a recent survey conducted by Envoy Global, a world-renowned immigration services provider, several HR professionals were asked about their company's immigration functions.
A total of 443 respondents were interviewed in the survey conducted in February. Eighty nine percent of companies so far have hired one or more foreign national employees who were previously laid off by another company in the last six months, mentioned the report titled ‘2023 Immigration Trends.’
The report also highlighted that companies have benefitted significantly from hiring the formerly laid-off foreign talent.
As many as 71 percent of the companies hired more foreign talent in the first quarter of 2023, according to the survey. Last year, 51 percent of companies fired foreign national employees.
Momentum to continue
The survey suggested that this momentum will continue. It also highlighted that 87 percent of employers are currently hiring foreign national employees in the US.
That momentum should continue this year, as employers expect to submit slightly more H-1B registrations than they did in 2022, which saw a record 483,000 submissions, read the report.
Further, this also brings relief for Indian H-1B visa holders. According to a report by PTI, 30-40 percent of employees that were laid off in the US were Indians. The H-1B visa programme has traditionally benefitted Indians the most. The US quota for H-1B visas is capped at 85,000.
US immigration barriers a problem
The survey also found that despite the high demand to sponsor foreign talent in the US, immigration barriers are leading employers to relocate foreign national employees overseas and outsource jobs.
Last year, 81 percent of companies transferred foreign national employees to foreign offices because of visa-related issues in the US, and 80 percent shifted employees to work remotely overseas again for the same reason, mentioned the survey.
As per the employees surveyed, US immigration barriers are commonly behind loss of foreign talent.
An H-1B Visa allows US employers to hire highly-skilled workers in specialised fields such as information technology, finance engineering, architecture, and accounting. In the event of being laid off, an individual has 60 days to find a new job or they must leave the US for their home country.
Due to the recent layoffs of such visa holders at Big Tech companies, there has been an increase in the number of people seeking jobs. Another problem that unemployed H-1B visa holders face is the fact that many companies will slow down their hiring processes during the Christmas period — this may cause problems for people whose family is in the US or kids in school there.
