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specialty occupations labour conditions programme, of which 599,782 were certified, 8,627 were denied and 45,951 were withdrawn.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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Another North Goa nightclub sealed; Kejriwal says corruption led to fire tragedy
Panaji (PTI): As part of a crackdown against tourist establishments violating laws and safety norms in the aftermath of the Arpora fire tragedy, Goa authorities on Saturday sealed a renowned club at Vagator and revoked the fire department NOC of another club.
Cafe CO2 Goa, located on a cliff overlooking the Arabian Sea at Vagator beach in North Goa, was sealed. The move came two days after Goya Club, also in Vagator, was shut down for alleged violations of rules.
Elsewhere, campaigning for local body polls, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal said the fire incident at Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub at Arpora, which claimed 25 lives on December 6, happened because the BJP government in the state was corrupt.
An inspection of Cafe CO2 Goa by a state government-appointed team revealed that the establishment, with a seating capacity of 250, did not possess a no-objection certificate (NOC) of the Fire and Emergency Services Department. The club, which sits atop Ozrant Cliff, also did not have structural stability, the team found.
The Fire and Emergency Services on Saturday also revoked the NOC issued to Diaz Pool Club and Bar at Anjuna as the fire extinguishers installed in the establishment were found to be inadequate, said divisional fire officer Shripad Gawas.
A notice was issued to Nitin Wadhwa, the partner of the club, he said in the order.
Campaigning at Chimbel village near Panaji in support of his party's Zilla Panchayat election candidate, Aam Aadmi Party leader Kejriwal said the nightclub fire at Arpora happened because of the "corruption of the Pramod Sawant-led state government."
"Why this fire incident happened? I read in the newspapers that the nightclub had no occupancy certificate, no building licence, no excise licence, no construction licence or trade licence. The entire club was illegal but still it was going on," he said.
"How could it go on? Couldn't Pramod Sawant or anyone else see it? I was told that hafta (bribe) was being paid," the former Delhi chief minister said.
A person can not work without bribing officials in the coastal state, Kejriwal said, alleging that officers, MLAs and even ministers are accepting bribes.
