New H-1B Data and Reporting

USCIS’ H-1B Employer Data Hub provides information about employers who have submitted H-1B petitions over the past 10 years. In the FY 2019, Amazon.com had nearly 3,000 H-1B approvals, Google had nearly 2,000 and Facebook over 1,200.

The H-1B program remains a favorite among tech companies and consulting firms but they are starting to shift away from it. High denial rates and frequent requests for evidence have made it more difficult and costly to employ H-1B workers.

In a new policy shift, the Department of Labor has started publishing the names of the companies where H-1B employees work. Previously, when a consulting firm placed a foreign worker at a company under the H-1B program the name of the company where the person worked was confidential.

The move comes after the DOL, in November 2018, started to require employers who were seeking to place H-1B workers at third-party client sites to list the names and addresses of those clients when applying for the visa.

The new rules and reporting requirements increase transparency but also raise confidentiality, privacy and liability concerns.

With the H-1B program becoming increasingly difficult to navigate, many companies are looking to Canada for a solution.

For example, by September 2020, Microsoft plans to open a new headquarters in downtown Toronto. The company expects that the Canadian investment will create more than 60,000 new jobs. Over the past 5 years, Toronto has added over 80,000 tech jobs.

Amazon is also investing in Canada. In 2018, the company announced it planned to open a new office in Vancouver and create 3,000 jobs.

Silver Immigration will continue to monitor and report on the H-1B program.

Read more about the H-1B Visa here: https://silverimmigration.com/en/cases/h-1b-visa/