Tagged: H1B

H-1B Visas: Obama’s Visit Brings Hope for India’s Skilled Workers

“…Immigration laws have been at the center of a heated debate in the U.S. and an issue that Mr. Obama has deemed important. But it is the status of illegal immigrants which has dominated discussion in America, delaying any changes in the number of H-1B and other skilled worker visas the U.S. issues each year.”

H-1B Visas: Obama’s Visit Brings Hope for India’s Skilled Workers

How many TN visas were REJECTED?

In our last entry, we looked at successful issuance of TN visas (and also H1B’s).  I also came across the number of rejected TN applicants in 2012.

Drum roll please.

2012 TN Rejection Rate

1,172 out of 8,810 of TN applications were rejected.  If I were a math teacher marking a test paper, this gets 13% rejection or 87% success rate.  Not bad.

So how does this compare to H1B?

2012 H1B Rejection Rate

29,994 out of 165,524 of H1B applications were rejected or 18% rejection rate.  Still not bad.

2012_TN_Rejection

Keep in mind though that the number of successful issuance includes renewals which has a higher chance of success.  What does this mean?  It means that if you’re thinking of applying for a TN (or H1B) visa and assuming your paper work is in order, on AVERAGE, your success rate is pretty high but not as high as 87% (or 82% for H1B).

Stats thanks to Buruau of Consular Affairs

How many TN visas were issued last year?

Given Canada and Mexico’s geographic proximity to the US and that there are no limit set on the TN visa/status issued every year, one would expect that the number of TN issued every year will be ridiculously high, right?   Well yes and no.  Here’s why.

Thanks to Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA), we were able to pull up some quick stats on TN, TD, and some other visas for 2012.

In 2012, only a whopping 7,638 TN visas were issued!  How does this compare to the more well-known work visa called H1B?  For starters, the limit set on H1B (excluding exemptions) is already at 65,000 but with renewals from prior H1B holders, the total number of H1B’s issued in 2012 was 135,530.   That is almost 20 times more than TN’s!

But wait, TN visa/status is only for Mexican and Canadian citizens so if you compare the number of issued visas to the overall country population, the percentage is actually not that far off.  Not only that, the ratio of TN issued to Canadian is 3+ times more than that of H1B visas relative the population pool of countries eligible for H1B at 0.12% versus 0,004%.

2012_TN_Issued

(The break up of number of TN issued to Canada and Mexico are approximate but total is based on Bureau of Consular Affairs.)

So what does this all mean?  Not sure because I was expecting number of TN issued to be much higher given the strong business ties with the US economy, cultural similarity (Canadians), and geographic promixity to the US.

Now that the economy is picking up, maybe this will change.