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The stern measures on H-1B visas by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is urging Information Technology (IT) firms to re-calibrate their hiring process even further.

IT companies are under agitation as it turned more than apparent from the latest data released by the USCIS that revealed that the applications filed by Indian firms such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro for its employees had relatively low approval rate compared to their overseas peers.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, approval rates vary significantly for the top 30 biggest users of H-1B visa. For instance, Apple, Facebook, Google, Intel, and Microsoft had a 99 percent approval rate.

Vivek Tandon, founder and chief executive officer, EB5 BRICS, an advisory firm, said, “It is clear from the data that it is mostly the Indian companies that are being targeted. Their denial rates are high for H-1B. This hardening of stance is only going to go up.”

At this juncture, Rogelio Caceres, chief commercial officer, and co-founder, LCR Capital Partners, said IT firms should re-think their hiring process and adjust revenues going forward.

Apart from the rigorous probe into filtering profiles, the USCIS also restrict people with H-4 visa (spouses of H-1B visa holders) from working in the country, which is going to put a huge strain on the family as sustaining on a single income is hard in the U.S., according to experts.

Recently, the USCIS said people who have their graduated from the U.S. universities would get preference while issuing an H-1B visa.

“Many of the companies have already stepped up their hiring overseas,” Caceres said. In recent times, hiring from U.S. universities has increased. For instance, HCL Technologies is looking to hire campus hires in the U.S.

Indian Students Count Dropping

However, this might also lead to students losing curiosity in studying in the U.S. Number of Indian students going to the U.S. has been dwindling over the last two years.

According to reports, Indian students in U.S. higher institutions grew 5.4 percent in 2017-18 as opposed to 12.3 percent in 2016-17 and 24.9 percent in 2015-16. Indian students account for about 17.9 percent of total foreign students in the U.S., the second highest after Chinese students at 33.2 percent.

Caceres said, “These new regulations may make Indian students rethink their choice, but to work in the U.S. you need to study there.”

Another area to look at might be the work allocation. Tandon said companies might shift some of the work from onsite to offshore. “They might recruit people overseas only for machine critical systems and shift rest of the work offshore, which they did not do so earlier due to the cost factor,” he added.

-Sowmya Sangam