Today, President Donald Trump is issuing an executive order that will review the process foreign specialty workers go through to receive H-1B visas to work in the United States. The order will likely affect which jobs qualify for these high-skilled work visas. For now, here’s a look at the current state of H-1Bs in the U.S.
This year, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received 199,000 H-1B petitions during its random selection process, down from 236,000 last year. This is the first time that number has declined in recent years, a sign companies and applicants expect changes under Trump.
The overwhelming majority — 82 percent — of these specialty work visas will likely be issued to people from India and China, according to last year’s data from the Department of State.
Computer-related jobs were responsible for 67 percent of all H-1B approvals in 2015, the latest year for which the USCIS has characteristics data. Indeed, these tech jobs have driven the entire growth of the H-1B program.
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This is trouble for all major tech companies with operations in the U.S., including Facebook, Apple and Google. However, outsourcing companies like Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services could have the most to lose. According to data from Goldman Sachs, India’s biggest IT companies rely heavily on workers from India to staff their U.S. operations.
Indian tech stocks have plunged 7 percent this month, thanks to visa uncertainty for their major companies:
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
