H1-B visa | Will COVID-19 third wave mar techies American dream?

Kellen Powell, an immigration attorney in the US, said, “I think in part, the rule is being delayed because the administration is worried that the wage rule was rushed and they need to think about unintended consequences.”

Chetan,* a Bengaluru-based techie working for a top information technology (IT) company, cannot wait for the next two weeks to pass. After waiting for one-and-a-half years, he is due to finally travel to the US on a coveted H-1B visa to work on the site of a client. Rapidly changing client requirements and uncertainty related to travel protocols enforced for the Covid-19 pandemic have Chetan worried that his trip may get cancelled for the third time in a little more than a year.

That is the situation in which many Indian holders of H1-B visas, which allow US employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty jobs, and aspirants find themselves in. After the pandemic forced many US companies to send work offshore rather than hire people onsite, techies finally on the verge of moving to the US for work are on tenterhooks that consular staff giving priority to students travelling to America for higher education may derail their chances.

H-1B visa

Indians are among the largest beneficiaries of the H-1B visa, a non-immigrant visa for skilled professionals. Of the 85,000 visas granted every year, a large share goes to Indians, who work for multinational companies including Microsoft Corporation and International Business Machines Corporation, as well as Indian IT service firms.

In financial year 2019, of the 180,000 visas granted, 130,000 went to Indians. In the following year, amid a general decline in the number of visas granted, Indians accounted for about 75% of the 124,000 visas approved. An onsite assignment, particularly in the US, is coveted by employees and even used as a tool to recruit and retain talent by these companies. But as the uncertainty stemming from Covid-19 persists, it is unclear if 2021 will be any different members of the for Indian community.

There are reasons why techies are worried about 2021 being a repeat of 2020.

Will 2021 be a repeat of 2020?

When the pandemic struck, companies moved more work offshore given travel restrictions enforced to halt the spread of the virus. A proclamation banning the entry of H-1B visa holders until March 31, 2021, did not help their cause either. Now, with the second wave of the pandemic raging and resultant uncertainty, employees are unsure if 2021 will be any different.

Take Chetan’s* case for instance. He got his H-1B approved and stamped in the first week of January 2020; it is valid until mid-2022. He was set to travel in mid-March 2020, when a lockdown was imposed. After the second wave dawned in India, his travel plans were postponed again.

“With the second wave in India, my client in the US did not want me to travel in March this year. Now there is an opening in the project, but if uncertainty persists and a third wave comes in, I will not be able to travel and my visa will expire,” he lamented.

Travel to the US on an H-1B visa requires more than six months' validity. Even a delay of a couple of months may render his visa useless, says Chetan.

In the case of Vikram*, a techie working for an IT firm based in Maharashtra, onsite opportunities in the US project he was working for were no longer available. He was working in Florida for a year and returned in 2019 when the client did not renew the project.

More than a year later, he was yet to find a project he can work on. In the meantime, his visa has expired.

The other issue is that US consulates in India are prioritising student petitions, and that has put the brakes on the plans of H-1B visa holders like Mani*, who is a senior employee in an IT firm in Bengaluru.

Mani recently got his H-1B visa petition (cap exempt, where inthe employee had a valid H-1B previously and did not use up the six years he was entitled to) approved. But his visa stamp is not valid. This means that the H-1B petition might have three years' validity but the timing of the visa stamp depends entirely on the consular officer in India. The stamp is mandatory for people to enter the US.

Now it might take 3-4 months, if not longer, to get the visa stamped because US consulates are giving priority to F-1 visa holders (student visa holders). Mani’s worry is that in the intervening time, a third wave of the pandemic may set in and his chances of going to the US may not materialise.

Will this impact IT services?

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd and Infosys Ltd did not comment on the issue because they are in their statutory silent period before the announcement of their financial results for the financial first quarter. Wipro Ltd and HCL Technologies Ltd hadn't yet responded to a query from Moneycontrol.

But going by the recent commentary from IT industry executives and analysts, it is unlikely to have a major impact on delivery of services.

IT firms, over the last year, have enabled work from home for employees, and have increased their offshore efforts. Infosys’s offshore efforts increased from 72.4% in March 2020 to 75.7% in March 2021. In the case of Wipro, the offshore revenue for IT services increased from 48.9% in financial year 2020 to 52.6% in the following year. Over 90% of their employees continue to work from home.

The companies have also reduced the dependence on H-1B visas over the last few years by increasing their hiring onsite. Top Indian IT firms' H-1B dependency has come down by 40-60% since 2017.

The requirement for people to be closer to corporate clients will not completely go away, said former TCS chief financial officer V Ramakrishnan in an interaction earlier this year.

“I think the need for human interaction at that level will not go away. So we will always have a hybrid model. You will still have people moving cross-border. That will continue and some of those elements will be there. But proportions may change,” he said.