H-1B Petitions Rise 6 Percent, First Increase in Three Years

Employers last week submitted 201,011 petitions for a total 85,000 H-1B visas available in fiscal year 2020.

The figure is roughly a 6 percent increase over the 190,098 petitions submitted during the first week of April last year. It’s also the first time in three years that the total number of petitions submitted for the skilled guestworker visas went up from the prior year.

The number of petitions dropped for both fiscal years 2018 and 2019 after hitting a peak of 236,000 for FY 2017. The number of petitions employers have sent to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services during the ...