A study by Rochester Institute of Technology Professor Ron Hira and statistics from Securities and Exchange Commission filings are offering a new perspective on the ever-growing H-1B and L-1 visa categories.

The study shows that Indian information technology companies operating in the United States constitute a large portion of applications for H-1B visas and L-1 visas.  The report sheds light on the assumption that US companies are the only ones taking advantage of the immigration laws that offer the opportunity to hire foreign workers.

As of September 30, 2003, India-based Wipro is reported to have 850 workers in the United States on H-1B visas and 1,401 employees on L-1 visas, with these visa workers making up a majority of the company’s personnel.  In comparison, US-based IT services company Electronic Data Systems applied for 452 H-1B visas in the year that ended September 30, 2001, while Wipro applied for 3,120.

The report states that India-based companies Wipro, Tata Consulting Services and Infosys Technologies were among the top 15 H-1B petitioners between October 1999 and February 2000.

Another area on which Hira focused was the use of guest worker visas by three India-based tech firms: Wipro, Infosys, and Satyam Computer Systems.  The report indicates that Infosys’ number of H-1B guest workers nearly doubled by over 2,000 from March 2001 to the end of 2002, while the US technology industry lost hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Hira believes that the number of applications from India-based companies will continue to grow following recent changes in H-1B laws.  While the cap fell last year from 195,000 to 65,000, the rules also now allow a company with a large proportion of H-1B workers to apply for another H-1B without demonstrating that they first sought US workers.