H1B Visa's Impact On IT Firms

The recent overhauling of the H1B visa policy under the Trump Administration, has led to rising concerns and uncertainties on issuance of visas in the Indian IT industry.

For instance, the revised H1B visa guidelines prescribe for certain eligibility criteria like minimum educational qualifications, requirement of establishing that a particular position is a specialty occupation etc. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services had also recently clarified that an entry level computer programmer position would not generally qualify as a position in a "specialty occupation". A position of "specialty occupation" requires higher education and would typically include scientist, engineers, skilled computer programmers, etc. The impact of these guidelines are, therefore, likely to be felt by entry-level IT recruits the hardest, many of whom travel to and are regularly outsourced to the US, for projects of US companies.