India's TCS among top 10 firms to get foreign labour certification for H-1B visas
Washington, Oct 23: Tata Consultancy Services is the only Indian company among top 10 firms to get foreign labour certification for the H-1B visas for the fiscal year 2018, according to data from the US Department of Labour.
The H-1B visas are the most sought-after among Indian IT professionals.
The visa programme allows employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in the US on a non-immigrant basis in specialty occupations or as fashion models of distinguished merit and ability.
London-headquartered Earnest and Young, a multinational professional services firm, has emerged as the top employer to have received the certification.
In fact, Ernest and Young with 151,164 H-1B specialist occupation labour certifications accounted for the 12.4 per cent of all foreign labour certification for the H-1B work visas for the fiscal year 2018 ending on September 30, according to the latest annual report released by the Department of Labour early this month.
Ernest and Young is followed by Deloitte Consulting which received 69,869 H-1B specialty occupations labour conditions programme.
Indian-American owned Cognizant Technology Corp comes at number three with 47,732 specialty occupations labour conditions programme, the Department of Labour said in its latest annual report.
Cognizant is followed by HCL America (42,820), K Force Inc (32,996), and Apple (26,833).
India's Tata Consultancy Services or TCS is the only Indian company in top 10 for the year 2018.
According to the Department of Labour in the fiscal year 2018, ending on September 30, TCS had received 20,755 H-1B specialty occupation labour certifications.
Qualcomm Technologies (20,723), Mphasis Corporation (16,671) and Capgemini America (13,517) are the other companies in top 10.
In the 2018 fiscal year the Department of Labour's Office of Foreign Labour Certification processed 654,360 applications for the H-1B specialty occupations labour conditions programme, of which 599,782 were certified, 8,627 were denied and 45,951 were withdrawn.
It received requests for 1,266,614 position of which 1,223,053 were certified.
Among the positions certified, software developers and applications accounted for nearly one-fourth with 285,963 positions being certified.
This was followed by computer systems analyst (176,025), Computer Occupations (120,736), Software developers, system software (67,262), accountants and auditors (54,2410 and computer programmers (53,727).
California with 309,205 certifications topped the list of States for getting maximum H-1B labour certification, followed by Texas (115,484), New York (95,722), New Jersey (65,232), Illinois (56,196), Washington (52,522) and Pennsylvania (51,471).
According to Department of labour, a specialty occupation requires the theoretical and practical application of a body of specialised knowledge and a bachelor's degree or the equivalent in the specific specialty (e.g. sciences, medicine, health care, education, biotechnology, and business specialties, etc.).
Congress has limited the annual number of qualifying foreign workers who may be issued a visa or otherwise be provided the H-1B status to 65,000 with an additional 20,000 under the H-1B advanced degree exemption.
Before applying for the H-1B visas the employer submits a labour condition application to the Department of labour. Companies can proceed with the H-1B petitions, only after they receive such a certification by the Department of labour.
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Iran reimposes restrictions on Strait of Hormuz, accusing US of violating deal to reopen it
Cairo (AP): Iran swiftly reversed course on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, reimposing restrictions on the critical waterway on Saturday after the US said it would not end its blockade of Iran-linked shipping.
Iran's joint military command said on Saturday that “control of the Strait of Hormuz has returned to its previous state ... under strict management and control of the armed forces.” It warned that it would continue to block transit through the strait as long as the US blockade of Iranian ports remained in effect.
The announcement came the morning after US President Donald Trump said that even after Iran announced the strait's reopening on Friday, the American blockade “will remain in full force” until Tehran reaches a deal with the US, including on its nuclear programme.
The conflict over the chokepoint threatened to deepen the energy crisis roiling the global economy after oil prices began to fall again on Friday on hopes the US and Iran were drawing closer to an agreement. Roughly one-fifth of the world's oil passes through the strait, and further limits would squeeze already constrained supply, driving prices higher once again.
Control over the strait has proven to be one of Iran's main points of leverage and prompted the United States to deploy forces and initiate a blockade on Iranian ports as part of an effort to force Iran to accept a Pakistan-brokered ceasefire to end almost seven weeks of war that has raged between Israel, the US and Iran.
Iran said it fully reopened the Strait of Hormuz to commercial vessels after a 10-day truce was announced between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. But after Trump said the blockade would continue, top Iranian officials said his announcement violated last week's ceasefire agreement between Iran and the US and warned the strait would not stay open if the US blockade remained in effect.
A data firm, Kpler, said movement through the strait remained confined to corridors requiring Iran's approval.
US forces have sent 21 ships back to Iran since the blockade began on Monday, US Central Command said on X.
Truce in Lebanon could help US-Iran peace efforts
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The ceasefire in Lebanon could clear one major obstacle to an agreement. But it was unclear to what extent Hezbollah would abide by a deal it did not play a role in negotiating, and which will leave Israeli troops occupying a stretch of southern Lebanon.
Trump said in another post that Israel is “prohibited” by the US from further strikes on Lebanon and that “enough is enough” in the Israel-Hezbollah war.
The State Department said the prohibition applies only to offensive attacks and not to actions taken in self-defence.
Shortly before Trump's post, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel agreed to the ceasefire in Lebanon “at the request of my friend President Trump,” but that the campaign against Hezbollah is not complete.
He claimed Israel had destroyed about 90 per cent of Hezbollah's missile and rocket stockpiles and added that Israeli forces “have not finished yet” with the dismantling of the group.
In Beirut, displaced families began moving toward southern Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs despite warnings by officials not to return to their homes until it became clear whether the ceasefire would hold.
The Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon reported sporadic artillery shelling in some parts of southern Lebanon in the hours after the ceasefire took effect.
An end to Israel's war with Hezbollah was a key demand of Iranian negotiators, who previously accused Israel of breaking last week's ceasefire with strikes on Lebanon. Israel had said that the deal did not cover Lebanon.
The fighting has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, more than 2,290 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Thirteen US service members have also been killed.
