Applications for H-1B, the favorite work visa for high-tech employers in the United States, finally
reached the annual cap this week after a slow start in the year because of the economic recession, local media reported on Friday.
There was only light demand for the normally popular visa in April, when the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began to take
applications for this fiscal year's quota of 65,000.
The USCIS announced this week that after nine months, employers in the country finally used up the annual quota, the San Jose Mercury News said in a report.
In comparison, filling the same quota took only one day the previous year, the newspaper noted.
The low pace of H-1B visa applications this year showed "how weak the American economy has been this past year," said Carl Guardino, chief
executive officer (CEO) of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, an organization that has more than 200 member companies in the region.
But analysts believed the fact that employers have finally used up the quota may be a good indication for the economy, showing that perhaps high-tech hiring was rebounding.
The H-1B visas are issued to U.S. employers to hire foreign workers in occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in fields such
as science, engineering and computer programming.
The visas, good for three years and renewable for another three, are especially popular with Silicon Valley high-tech companies who use them to
attract talent from around the world.
According to Guardino, about 53 percent of engineers in Silicon Valley are foreign born and more than half of the founders or CEOs of new
technology companies in the area are also born abroad. The percentages underscore "the need for talent from around the globe to compete globally," he said.