H-1B Visa Program: 13 Notable Statistics

Scott Fanning was quoted in InformationWeek on November 20, 2014. The article “H-1B Visa Program: 13 Notable Statistics” discussed how the demand for new H-1B visas is expected to considerably outpace supply in the coming year based off statistics.

Scott Fanning was quoted on his forecast of the H-1B demand for the near future.

Scott told InformationWeek that Fisher Phillips expects demand to continue rising for the foreseeable future. H-1B demand reacts to a host of variables -- if the global economy tanks like it did in 2008, for example, you can bet H-1B applications will fall -- but Scott detailed two factors that will drive rising demand next year and possibly beyond. The first is simply that many of the people (and their prospective employers) whose applications didn't survive the lottery process this year will try again next year, in addition to the usual pool of first-time applicants. The second is that some employers are sponsoring more H-1B petitions than they had in the past to manage the growing probability that some of those applications won't result in visas.

So why doesn't the federal government just raise -- or eliminate, as some have suggested -- the cap and let the free market decide the right number of H-1B visas? Scott said there has actually been some support on both sides of the political aisle for expanding the H-1B program, though Republicans and Democrats don't see eye-to-eye (shocking, we know) on how to address it legislatively. Immigration policy in general is, to put it mildly, a heated topic in Washington and nationwide.

To read the full article, please visit InformationWeek.