New Delhi (NVI): The US Department of Labour has sought public input in the next 60 days on sources and methods for determining prevailing wage levels for the employment of certain immigrants and non-immigrant workers, including those on the H-1B visas.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows the US companies to employ foreign workers in occupations that require technical expertise. The technology companies in US depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.
According to the federal notification published yesterday, the request by the department’s Employment and Training Administration follows a prior announcement by the department proposing an 18-month delay in the effective date of a final rule changing on calculating the prevailing wage levels for certain immigrants and non-immigrant workers.
“Published in January 2021, the final rule affects employers seeking to employ foreign workers on a permanent or temporary basis through certain immigrant visas or through H-1B, H-1B1 and E-3 non-immigrant visas,” the notification read.
According to media reports, in February, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services said that it received a sufficient number of petitions needed to reach the Congressionally-mandated 65,000 H-1B visa regular cap and the 20,000 H-1B visa US advanced degree exemption, known as the master’s cap, for fiscal year (FY) 2021.
It was announced that Biden administration was delaying the H-1B policy of the previous Trump administration on the allocation of the popular foreign work visas by continuing with the lottery system until December 31, 2021, to give the immigration agency more time to develop, test and implement the modifications to the registration system.
On January 7, the USCIS announced to do away with the traditional lottery system in deciding the successful applicants for the H-1B visas.
The rule made by Trump administration, was scheduled to come into effect on March 9.
–PRT
