H-1B Visa 2015 Statistics

The Office of Foreign Labor Certification released statistics for the first quarter of the 2015 Fiscal Year (starting October 1) on the whole range of employment based certification for foreign workers. A function of the Department of Labor, the FLC is tasked with certifying the H-1B visa labor conditions and permanent employment labor certifications.

The statistics for the first three months of the fiscal year reveal that over 80,000 H-1B applications were received, the overwhelming majority of which are in the computers realm – Computer Systems Analysts, Software Developers, Programmers, and other Computer Occupations dominate the list of certified positions. There is also nothing surprising about the states leading the way in H-1B applications: California, Texas, and New York are the top three states. Pennsylvania is eighth. Also revealing is that 176,259 positions were requested for certification and over 95% of those requests were certified. H1-B season picks up in full force over the next few months, as applications received on April 1 can be processed for October 1 starting dates (new fiscal year, when the cap of 65,000 + 20,000 starts fresh).

The Department of Labor is involved in the immigration and visitation of foreign workers for two important reasons. The first is to protect qualified American workers from losing jobs to foreign workers. The second is to ensure that the foreign workers are paid at the prevailing or actual wage, to guard against wage depression for American workers and protect foreign workers from being underpaid. The employer must make a prevailing wage determination and attest to paying the foreign worker at or above that wage in the labor condition agreement, which must be certified by the Department of Labor before the H-1B visa petition can be filed.