This article was originally published by Neetish Basnet in the Puget Sound Business Journal.
Employers in Washington need high-skill foreign workers. Specifically, one nuclear engineer, 35 biostatisticians, 737 graphic designers, 4,245 research analysts, 1,893 data scientists and 33,983 software developers.
Those are just some of the 69,809 H1-B petitions from Washington employers that have been certified by the U.S. Department of Labor since October.
Demand for the H1-B visa program, which allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations, is surging again. Petitions in the first half of 2023 are up 13% nationwide compared to the first half of 2020. However, with only 85,000 annual H1-B visas permitted each year, the competition is fierce.
Large tech employers remain the biggest beneficiaries of the program and are bulking up on foreign workers. Amazon.com Inc. led the nation with 18,569 total approvals in fiscal year 2022, a 153% increase from 2019. Redmond-based Microsoft Corp. in 2022 had 7,209 total H1-B visa approvals, more than double the 2019 approvals.
