Giant Technology Solutions firm, Cognizant is clamping down on filing for Permanent Residency Green Cards for its employees under the EB1 and EB2 categories. Wanting to have a bigger onsite presence, they are focused on hiring local talent over pursuing permanent residency for H1B visa holders who have been transferred to the US from India. Although they will continue to support their existing applicants under the two categories, they have ramped up hiring within the US. They have over 4,000 US citizens and residents as technology and business employees and have recently hired over a 1,000 more in their Tampa office. This hiring frenzy corresponds to the number of H1b visas they have applied for this year which is close to half compare to last year.
In a show of support towards the local hiring market, they are working with local institutions to customize a curriculum that will help meet client needs. Consequently, Cognizant has expanded its retraining programs within the US with an intention to be less dependent on the H1B visa holders. It was unclear whether this was in reaction to the uncertain future of the tech immigrants in light of the executive orders passed by the Trump administration or not. Nevertheless, they are also laying off close to 6,000 employees from their India based offices.
Following a similar pattern, Infosys Ltd., the largest employer of workers under the US H1B visa program for skilled workers also announced its strategy to hire and train 10,000 American workers for positions like data analytics, enterprise cloud applications and cybersecurity.
While EB1 visas caters to professionals with extraordinary ability including senior management employees, EB2 and 3 visas offer employment-based permanent residency for skilled workers and professionals in the science, art or business fields and having acquired two years training or experience with a US baccalaureate degree or a foreign equivalent. If you would like to get reliable legal opinion on where your visa status stands, you may contact Lawbench for a nominal price.
