With applications skyrocketing year after year, experts are speculating that 2023 may be a bad year to apply for an H-1B visa.
For those who forgot, the H-1B is a visa in the US that allows US employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty occupations.
Granting the H-1B is based on a lottery basis, with applications that will be processed being selected at random.
According a recent Mint article, this is because of the newly launched electronic registration. It started in 2020, and since then has increased the number of applicants for H-1B visas to almost 500,000 in a year.
2023 is projected to be the biggest year yet, and yet there are only around 85,000 H-1B petition approvals.
Aside from the US economy doing well overall, enticing more applicants into the country, there have been large-scale layoffs in the tech industry, with many of those let go needing to reapply for an H-1B.
There are also H-1B applicants who lost the lottery the previous year who are applying again.
With such tight competition for processing, the chances are bleaker than ever to get picked in the H-1B lottery.
This doesn’t mean you should give up though. There may be other ways to work legally in the United States.
For help on getting an H-1B and tips on other ways to get work authorization, reach out to a trusted immigration lawyer.
