United States may not conduct a second H-1B visa lottery for FY23
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H-1B visa lottery: The United States may not be holding a second lottery for H-1B visas for the fiscal year 2023 (year ending 30th Sep 2023).
As per a TOI report, immigration lawyers have reported the issue of H-1B cap ‘non-selection’ notices – a sign that no second lottery will be conducted.
“There may not be a second H-1B lottery this year. The USCIS has electronically given a few ‘non-selection’ notices. Which is a step taken only when there will be no more lotteries,” Rajiv Khanna, managing lawyer at Immigration.com said. Yet there is no formal declaration from USCIS.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) got 483,927 H-1B cap registrations this fiscal, a 57% increase over last season. Of these, USCIS has selected 127,600 registrations(26%) to meet the H-1B quota. The registration window was open from March 1 till 18th March 2022.
H-1B visa lottery for FY23
The H-1B cap applies to almost all first-time H-1B petitions. This is the third year straight that the USCIS will use an online registration process. To randomly select sufficient H-1B registrations to meet the cap.
Last year, the US immigration agency conducted three visa lotteries to meet the mandated cap of 65,000 regular visas and 20,000 under the master’s cap.
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The USCIS follows an October to September year, and candidates selected for FY2023 would be eligible to begin work from October 2023.
Over the last few years, Indian organizations have been reducing the proportion of workers they employ on H-1B visas. Even American tech organizations have been expanding the number of individuals they bring into the country on these visas. An often cited reason is the shortage of highly skilled tech talent in the country. Through the pandemic, the unemployment rates for technology jobs have remained low. Also, pointing to the high demand that exists in this space.
