The denial rate for the new H-1B applications has recorded a significant decrease, to nearly four percent, marking a huge decline compared to 13 percent registered in the fiscal year 2020.
According to the figures published by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), the denial rate in 2018 was as high as 24 percent, while the same was 21 percent in the fiscal year 2019, VisaGuide.World reports.
In this regard, the Executive Director of NFAP, Stuart Anderson, stressed that “the four percent denial rate in fiscal 2021 for new H-1B petitions was similar to the rate before Donald Trump took office, meaning the Trump years were an aberration due to imposing restrictive policies that courts found to be unlawful.”
In addition, during the fiscal year 2021, Amazon accounted for the largest number of petitions approved for H-1B for initial employment with nearly 6,182 approvals, followed by Infosys with a total of 5,256 approvals, as reported by Trak.in.
Besides, during the same period, TCS had a total of 3,063 approvals, Wipro,121, and Cognizant 1,481, IBM 1,402, HCL America 1,299, Microsoft 1240.
In addition, the report has found that in 2020, the denial rate of major IT companies was as follows:
- Tech Mahindra – 30 percent
- L&T – 26 percent
- Infosys – 58 percent
- Cognizant – 48 percent
The increase in the denial rate of applicants for H-1B visas was mainly noted during Trump’s administration, while in 2021, after Biden took office, it increased by 37 percent.
As it was previously reported, several visa norms and other changes applied by the administration of the former President, Donald Trump, led to a significant decline in the H-1B visa applications, which mostly were noted in the technology sector, which is very important for the H-1B visa.
However, during last year, the Indian IT sector’s interest in the US Person in Speciality Occupation Visa increased notably.
A total of 3.08 lakh applications were filed for the H-1B cap registration for the fiscal year 2022, marking a 12 percent increase compared to last year’s figures. Still, the USCIS has selected 87,500 registrations only in the lotteries that meet the annual quotas.
Previously, as reported by the Economic Times, the approval rates for H-1B visas issued by the administration of the US in the quarter to June and in the first three quarters of the US fiscal year were 98.1 percent and 97 percent.
These figures showed that compared to 2018 and 2019 figures when the approval rate was 84 percent, last year, there was marked a notable increase.