Nervous Indians are Frantically Searching For ‘H-1B visa’ and ‘Work Visa’ On Job Sites; 20% Of All Searches From Indians!

We’ve been strapped on with all the changes going on around the H-1B visa norms since 2016. They’ve nothing but tightened under Trump’s administration, vigilant to secure maximum good quality jobs for American citizens.

With such rapid shifts in the norms of H1B visa, the Indians working in the US as well as the companies of Indian origin based in the US are facing a lot of problems.

To support this fact, it has been found that the jobs listings site ‘Indeed’ has been flooded with keyword searches related to US work visa and this activity has increased to a scary level in just a year’s period.

Indians Searching H1B Visa On Job Sites

US under President Trump’s administration has had many reforms in the outlook of issuance of H1B visas to immigrants seeking jobs. The rules have nothing but tightened. The numbers of these visas have already climbed down drastically. The last five years has seen a 21% reduction in the approvals of H1B visas. After the reforms monitored by the Trump govt, quite vigilant in ensuring American interests, the approvals of the H1B visa have declined by a sharp 50% in FY 2018, from 43,957 in 2017, to 22,429 in 2018.

This has led Indians to drift on a restless side. Search for visa-related terms by those seeking US jobs, especially Indians, saw an unusual spike last year. With searches of keywords like ‘work visa’, ‘H1B visa’, ‘H1-B visa’, ‘H2B visa, ‘H2-B visa’, ‘immigration visa’, ‘immigrant visa’, and ‘employment visa’ on jobs listings site Indeed, it was found that the search by job seeker for a US job has rose magnanimously by 673% between September 2017 and September 2018.

Trump has giantly twisted the criteria for H1B visa, making it more rigid. The rejections have soared, often citing unknown or baseless reasons. Naturally, foreigners’ prime concern is to find employers who will sponsor them and provide security.

Letting the Numbers Take Over

Sure there were a percentage of searches coming from profiles of people within America, possibly students or working professionals looking to change jobs, a significant share was contributed by foreigners though.

By August, this share had nearly doubled compared to two years ago. The proportion of visa-related searches from abroad peaked in November 2018 to 88.2%.

It will surprise you that one out of five of these searches was registered from India. It is already known that Indians do bag the majority of H-1B visas each year, so such policy changes would bother them the most.

The most Trump govt could do was to propose to restrict the share of Indian recipients between 10% and 15%.