US President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend the coveted H-1B visas until the end of the year is likely to have a significant impact on...
US President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend the coveted H-1B visas until the end of the year is likely to have a significant impact on India: after all, around 70% of these over the last five years have gone to Indians. Trump’s administration insists that this move will ensure jobs go to Americans rather than foreigners.
Scroll.in spoke to Shivendra Singh, Vice President and Head of Global Trade Development, of NASSCOM, the trade association of Indian IT firms, about why the US is curbing critical-skills visas that make up a tiny part of the US workforce and the impact of this suspension on India and the US.
Edited excerpts on the interview:
How important is the H-1B visa to India and the US? How important has it been in the recent decades?
There are two parts to it. H-1B visas have a very important role in bridging the critical skills gap that exists in the US. And about 75% of the visas in the capped section go to Indian nationals. That is testimony to the skill set Indians possess, and also to what is needed that are in scarce supply as far as the US is concerned.
Dozens of research papers and documents point to the fact that these visa-holders play a very...
