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Are you a US employer? Are you finding it difficult to find highly skilled workers? You may wish to consider the H-1B temporary work visa for graduate level employees.
If you want to do so, you still have time but the 2014 H-1B season is nearly upon us. USCIS will begin accepting applications on 1st April 2014. So, if you want to employ a degree level foreign worker in a 'specialty occupation' you should start preparing now. It is almost certain that the H-1B non-immigrant visa quota will be reached within a few days of 1st April 2014.
Foreign workers employed on H-1B visas should normally have a bachelor's degree or higher but USCIS can also issue an H-1B visa to a worker who has achieved 'degree equivalence' through a mixture of education, training and work experience.
There's a lot to do
If you think that April is a long way off, and you've got plenty of time, then please think again. There's a lot to do.- You should usually file a prevailing wage request with the National Prevailing Wage Center. You will need to explain the nature of the job concerned and the NPWC will calculate the correct wage for the job. Guidelines suggest that these requests should be dealt with within 14 days
- You can also submit an 'alternative wage survey' to find out the prevailing wage for your H-1B employee. This should take no more than 30 days.
- You must also file your Labor Condition Application with the Department of Labor. We can help you with this process too. Usually this takes seven business days.
- You must notify the employees or union representative at your firm that you have made a Labour Condition Application. If there is no representative, you must publish the information at work.
- We can then prepare your application for the H-1B visa itself. This application should reach USCIS on 1st April 2014 because it is likely that demand will be very high again this year.
85,000 applications accepted each year
Each year, USCIS accepts H-1B applications from 1st April. It can issue only 85,000 H-1B visas; 65,000 to those with bachelors' degrees (or degree equivalence) to work in specialty occupations and a further 20,000 for those with higher degrees such as master's degrees and doctorates.The H-1B rules state that USCIS will accept applications for at least five business days. If on the fifth business day, the quota has been reached, then no further applications will be accepted and all applications that have already been received will be entered into a lottery.
65,000 specialty occupation and 20,000 higher degree applications will then be chosen randomly and all other petitions that are subject to a cap are discarded. If the quota has not been reached after five days, then USCIS will continue to accept applications until the quotas are reached.
124,000 applications in five days in 2013
But this is unlikely to happen; in 2013, USCIS began accepting applications on 1st April as usual. By 5th April (the fifth business day in April in 2013), it had received 124,000 applications.Demand is expected to be even higher this year. So, we can be pretty certain, if your application is not in by 7th April, you will miss out.
Processing should take between one and six months. If your prospective employee is currently outside the US, they will be able to go to the US embassy or a consulate in his home country to get their passport endorsed.
Visas operative from 1st October
If they are already in the country, then they can apply to change their status by post or wait until they next leave the country. They can begin work on October 1st.But, if you are not ready by the start of April, you will have to wait another year so why not give us a call?
If you require workpermit.com to help you with the H-1B process, then please get in touch. You can reach us by email on us@workpermit.com or by phone on +44 (0)344 991 9222
