New Delhi: Indian IT companies were the worst affected in 2018 due to Trump administration's revised rules for H-1B visa extension.
According to a report in the Economic Times, TCS, Infosys and Cognizant saw the maximum rejection of H-1B extension applications as revised rules favoured American technology firms.
According to the ET report, Bengaluru-based Infosys saw 2,042 rejections, followed by TCS at 1,744. US-headquartered Cognizant, which has a majority of its workforce in India, saw 3,548 rejections during 2018, highest for any company. These numbers were released by Centre for Immigration Studies, a US think tank, after an analysis of the H-1B data, the business daily said.
Six Indian companies — TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, and the US arms of Tech Mahindra and HCL Technologies — accounted for nearly two-thirds of the rejections among the top 30 companies, the publication mentioned citing the think tank, which analysed data put out by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
The above six firms got just 16%, or 2,145, H-1B work permits, less than the 2,399 visas that only Amazon bagged in 2018. Cognizant, TCS, Infosys and Wipro together saw 7,933 H-1B rejections while top 30 tech firms, including Indian IT companies, saw 13,177 rejections, the business daily mentioned.
It may be noted that H-1B visas, which are used mainly by technology companies to send their employees to work in US, are initially given for three years with the option of an extension for a similar term.
US-based tech firms, such as Microsoft, Amazon and Apple, increased their H-1B workforce during the year, while net reductions were imposed on the big Indian firms, such as Cognizant, Tata and Infosys, the Centre for Immigration Studies said in its study that was put out on March 6.