Demand for H-1B visas rises and falls with the strength of the US economy. In 2007, all were snapped up in two days. In 2009, the first year after the economic downturn, it took nine months to reach the quota; last year, it took 10 months.
This year, the quota was met on Nov. 22, eight months after the application window opened.
There are dozens of visa programs for admitting foreign workers, most of them designed for temporary workers. For example, there is a visa for foreign journalists, another for athletes, and yet another for entertainers.
The H-1B visa is intended to help US employers temporarily hire skilled workers who may be hard to find in the domestic labor force.
Citizenship and Immigration Services begins accepting H-1B visa applications every April. Employers, rather than individuals, apply for the three-year visas, which can be renewed for another three years.
H-1B visas have been used them to bring in such diverse professionals as chefs and fashion models, but according to a January study from the Government Accountability Office, 50 percent of the visas go to “STEM workers’’- those with training in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Many of the nation’s major technology companies hire H-1B workers directly. In addition, US subsidiaries of outsourcing firms in India seek H-1B visas so they can send their employees to American companies as contract workers.
Since its launch in 1990, the H-1B program has been controversial. Businesses say the program helps supplement a labor pool that contains too few engineers and scientists, but technology workers say companies hire foreign workers to avoid paying US wages.
The GAO study found that 54 percent of visa recipients between June 2009 and July 2010 were categorized as “entry-level’’ technical workers and paid considerably less than experienced Americans with similar skills.
“Certainly, a lot of employers are using it for low-cost foreign workers,’’ said Ron Hira, associate professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology and a longtime H-1B critic.
Hira and other critics say the H-1B system is the wrong way to bring in foreign workers.
