U.S. Tech: Increase in H-1B Visas Symptom of Talent Gaps?

With IoT and other emerging technologies on the way, US tech companies are facing problems to cover their demand for highly trained experts with local STEM graduates. This results in a rising number of H-1B working visa applications approved by Amazon, Alphabet and Co. 2018 marks the 16th consecutive year of exhausted H-1B limits with 190,000 applications on the annual limitation of 85,000 approvals.

With President Trump in opposition to the H-1B program, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service put stricter rules for applicants in practice last spring. But as this graphic shows, the number of successful applications by the big leaders in tech has further increased. Foreign experts stay crucial for the tech industry’s R&D high rollers.