H-1B visa approvals: Indian-based IT firms experienced a significant decline in H-1B visa approvals, with seven major companies receiving 7,299 petitions for new employment in fiscal year 2024, compared to 14,792 in FY2015, as revealed by the National Foundation for American Policy’s analysis of US data.
The approved petitions constituted 5.2% of total approvals and 0.004% of the US civilian workforce. FY24 witnessed low H-1B denial rates at 2.5%, showing a slight reduction from 3.5% in FY23.
According to an ET report, the analysis suggests potential increases in denial rates if Trump’s administration implements stricter policies.

H-1B petitions

Amazon led with 3,871 approved initial employment petitions in FY24, followed by Cognizant (2,837), Infosys (2,504), TCS (1,452), IBM (1,348), Microsoft (1,264), HCL America (1,248), Google (1,058), Capgemini (1,041) and Meta Platforms (920).
Tesla demonstrated notable growth in H-1B approvals, reaching 16th position in FY24 with 742 approvals, substantially higher than its previous figures of 328 in FY2023 and 337 in FY2022.
The company sought H-1B visa holders for various positions in engineering, software, supply management and other specialised roles.

H-1B visas: Big Tech Companies

The United States maintains an annual cap of 65,000 H-1B visas, plus 20,000 for foreign nationals holding advanced degrees from US universities.
Professional, scientific and technical services dominated FY2024 approvals at 49.1%, followed by educational services (11.9%), manufacturing (9.3%), and health care and social assistance (6.5%).