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A Look At The High Fees Making Hiring H-1B Visa Holders Challenging

Outlet: Forbes

Hiring and retaining foreign-born scientists and engineers is expensive for employers in the United States. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services fee rule represents the latest federal action making it more costly to employ H-1B visa holders.

Analysts say assertions about “cheap labor” ignore the significant fees employers pay and the law requiring employers to pay H-1B professionals as much as comparable U.S. workers. The registration process for the FY 2025 H-1B cap starts on March 6, 2024.

Britta Glennon, an assistant professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, concluded in a study that restrictions on H-1B visas result in more jobs leaving the United States: “[A]ny policies that are motivated by concerns about the loss of native jobs should consider that policies aimed at reducing immigration have the unintended consequence of encouraging firms to offshore jobs abroad.” Employers would consider mandating pay well above market wages to individuals with little experience a restriction.