The decision to hike US H-1B visa application fee to $100,000, trade talks and the GST rate cut will be the key drivers for stock market movement this week, analysts said.
It has been the preferred visa for Indian IT companies and has helped them keep costs down and gain a margin advantage over multinational players by sending engineers to the US.
The US President said that companies have to bring people to "get those plants opened, we want you to do that, and we want those people to teach our people how to make computer chips and how to make other things."
A strident bill concerning US work visas for non-US citizens has been re-introduced before the US Senate. A look at the bill.
From the Sensex firms, Tech Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Service, Infosys, HCL Tech, Tata Motors, Trent, Reliance Industries and Larsen & Toubro were among the major laggards. However, Eternal, Bajaj Finance, Adani Ports and UltraTech Cement were among the gainers.
Among Sensex firms, Trent, Power Grid, Tata Motors, Tata Consultancy Services, Asian Paints, NTPC, Adani Ports and Bajaj Finance were the laggards. However, Bharat Electronics, Axis Bank and Bharti Airtel were the major gainers.
US President Donald Trump is considering suspending a number of employment visas including the H-1B, most sought-after among Indian IT professionals, in view of the massive unemployment in America due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a media report. The proposed suspension could extend into the government's new fiscal year beginning October 1, when many new visas are issued, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, quoting unnamed administration officials.
Almost all Indian IT companies pay between $8,000 and $10,000 per H1B visa as per the hike
US H1-B visa cap reached within 5 days for 3rd straight year.
The Biden administration has proposed a massive hike in immigration fees, including the much sought-after H-1B visas for high-skilled foreign workers, which is very popular among Indian tech professionals. Under the proposed rule, published by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Wednesday, the application for the H-1B visa increases from $460 to $780, and L-1 from $460 to $1,385. The application fee for O-1 visas has been proposed to increase from $460 to $1,055.
A group of influential lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan legislation in the US Senate to comprehensively overhaul the H-1B and L-1 visa programmes and usher in more transparency in the recruitment of foreign workers. The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.
Also looks at setting up development and training centres in the US to tide over visa-related issues
The Indian IT companies, which account for a large number of H-1B applications, are likely to face the additional financial burden because of this proposed increase in H-1B filing fees.
The proclamation that comes into effect on June 24, is expected to impact a large number of Indian IT professionals and several American and Indian companies who were issued H-1B visas by the US government for the fiscal year 2021 beginning October 1.
As the US gets tougher with visas, the prayers of US-bound devotees in India are getting more fervent, and their purse strings looser. Called Visa Hanuman temples (there are half a dozen all over India), some of them ask for a 'fee'.
US President Donald Trump has extended the freeze on the most sought-after H-1B visas along with other types of foreign work visas by three months to protect American workers, saying while therapeutics and COVID-19 vaccines are recently available, their effect on the labour market and community health has not yet been fully realised. The decision will impact a large number of Indian IT professionals and several American and Indian companies who were issued H-1B visas by the US government for the fiscal year 2021 beginning October 1. The freeze on various categories of work visas was ordered by Trump through two proclamations on April 22 and June 22 last year.
Here's a look at how many of the visas they and other top Indian outsourcers used...
'If companies want to hire foreign workers instead of Americans, my bill will hit them where it hurts: Their pocketbooks.'
Dr Arun Vakil discusses US tourist visas, study visa and various work visas. He also details the procedure for using Visa Facilitation Services.
Arun Vakil answers reader questions about F1, H1B and travel visas. How should you present your assets? What questions should you expect from visa officers?
A year ago, when thousands of people were handed pink slips, the USCIS had received 42,000 H-1B applications.
India's second-largest information technology services provider, Infosys Technologies, has applied for a mere 405 visas till date for financial year 2009-10 - its lowest application count in recent years.
'Skilled labour is different from immigration.' 'While any adverse immigration ruling will impact Indians, it may not necessarily affect the IT services industry.'
Indian outsourcers file the most applications for temporary H-1B visas. Are they using them to train staff for jobs abroad?
From May 26 onwards, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services will begin accepting applications for work visas from H-IB spouses, reports Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com.
US Congress is planning to further tighten provisions on the visas giving employers less flexibility in using them and making them a riskier bet for foreign employees seeking a long-term future in America.
From the 30-Sensex firms, Tata Steel, Asian Paints, Trent, State Bank of India, Hindustan Unilever, UltraTech Cement, ICICI Bank and Bharti Airtel were among the gainers. On the other hand, Infosys, Bajaj Finance, Bharat Electronics, Larsen & Toubro and HDFC Bank were the laggards.
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced that it has reached the cap on Congressionally mandated 65,000 H-1B work visas, the most sought after by Indian professionals.
The US Representative criticised the administration's new USD 100,000 fee on H-1B visas, observing that Indians hold 70 per cent of these visas and saying the change directly harms workers who have long supported US innovation across technology, science and medicine.
Arun Vakil looks at H1B visas in the United States. He gives an introduction, reviews details and looks at the future of this most desired and least available visa.
I think the United States must realise that today 60 to 70 per cent of the growth of the revenues of large American companies comes from India and China.
India is a global leader in software development services, IT enabled services, knowledge process outsourcing services and contract R&D services relating to software development, Sitharaman said noting these business segments are quite inter-connected with each other.
The Congressional-mandated cap of 65,000 H-1B visas and another 20,000 in the advanced degree categories were reached within the first five days after USCIS started accepted H-1B applications in April.
The ruling by a federal judge in Oregon means that there will be no change in the H-1B visa issuance process for the fiscal 2018 which begins on April 3.
The current Federal rules require an H-1B visa holder to leave the US along with family members within 60 days of losing his job. The H-1B visa holders have started a petition campaign on the White House website to extend the timeline for their stay in the US to 180 days after they are being laid off.
'We are only talking about 65,000 H1B visas a year, it is not going to go down drastically.' 'If the number reduces and when you spread that reduction across all the top IT services companies, the impact will be marginal.'
Shares of information technology (IT) companies were in demand on Friday, with the National Stock Exchange's (NSE's) Nifty IT index rallying 3.3 per cent on . This came after Infosys reported steady sequential growth, driven by health care boost and large deal rampup in a seasonally weak quarter (Q3FY26).
Officials at a Congressional hearing cited last year's figure of 26 per cent denial to H1B visa applicants, that was the highest in recent years, and also pointed out instances where the visas were denied for flimsy reasons.
The United States on Saturday announced that from April 3 it will temporarily suspend the 'premium processing' of H-1B visas that allowed some companies to jump the queue as part of its efforts to clear the backlog.
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