Employers are closing in on the limit for hiring foreign IT workers for jobs next year, roughly two months before the start of the 2006 fiscal year, an immigration official said.
The number of applications for the jobs, many of them in high-tech companies, was close to 52,000 as of Thursday, with 22,383 applications for H1-B visas approved and 29,556 pending, or 51,939.
The limit for the world except Chile and Singapore is 58,200.
"The cap will definitely be hit before October 1, which was when it was hit last year," said Chris Bentley, spokesman for the agency that is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
H1-B visas are granted to foreigners in specialty professions such as computer programming. Under the programme, employers must pay foreign workers the prevailing wage for their job fields and show that qualified US workers are not being passed over to hire aliens.
Federal law provides 65,000 H1-B visas every fiscal year, which begins October 1. Of those, 6,800 are set aside for workers from Chile and Singapore under their free-trade agreements with the United States.
Bentley said he could not predict when the cap would be hit because a flood of applications could come on a single day or be submitted over several days.
{{/usCountry}}Bentley said he could not predict when the cap would be hit because a flood of applications could come on a single day or be submitted over several days.
{{/usCountry}}Employers, particularly high-tech companies, long have argued that not enough H1-B visas are available.
Congress temporarily raised the number to 195,000 during the high-tech boom. In April, Microsoft Corp Chairman Bill Gates, in a rare visit to Washington, lobbied the Bush administration to lift the limit on H1-B visas.