After first week of opening visa applications, USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) reports that it received only 42,000 H!-B visa applications from foreigners for high skill jobs in US. The total available visas are 65000. Last year the cap of 65K is reached within few days.For year 2008 USCIS received 163,000 H1-B applications.

The fall of economy and no signs of recovery may be the reasons for drop in demand for US work visas. The companies who took government bail out money  is restricted not to hire foreign workers in H1-B visas. This may be one of the causes that is effecting in the reduction of H1-B visa applicants.

But advanced degree quota of 20,000 visas are filled up fast. These work visas are for students who completed MS or other graduate degrees in US.

Source : Economic Times , PTINews