"US Green Card Curbs May Push Tech Work to India"
PERM
Permanent Labor Certification, the first step an employer takes before sponsoring a worker for a US green card
I-140 petition
an immigrant petition filed after PERM confirming a foreign worker's eligibility for permanent residency
The US employment-based green card process has several steps. PERM (Permanent Labor Certification) is the first step an employer must complete before sponsoring a worker for an employment-based green card. The employer must show that no qualified American worker is available for the role. After PERM, the employer files an I-140 immigrant petition. This petition confirms the worker's eligibility. Only then can the worker apply for permanent residency. The H-1B visa is a temporary work visa for specialised occupations. It is usually the first step, often followed years later by PERM sponsorship.
This system has long struggled with a structural bottleneck. US immigration law limits employment-based green cards to 7% per country. This limit applies regardless of how many applicants come from that country. A very large share of PERM certifications have historically gone to Indian workers. This cap has created enormous backlogs for Indian applicants. Some have waited for decades. Indian IT majors had already been reducing their reliance on US work visas before this crackdown. They shifted toward hiring Americans locally. At the same time, they delivered technical work offshore from India.
The suspension of new and pending PERM applications for eight major technology employers is best understood as a labour-market version of trade protectionism. Tariffs or currency restrictions try to protect domestic industry. But they can also push supply chains elsewhere. Restricting the inflow of skilled foreign workers does not guarantee that the same jobs stay in the US. Firms can simply move that work to where the talent already is. Increasingly, this means India.
The eight affected firms are Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCLTech and Capgemini. Their exposure differs sharply. Indian IT outsourcing firms had already stopped filing most new PERM applications by early 2024. They had restructured their US operations around local hiring rather than visa sponsorship. Microsoft and Adobe, by contrast, had become the leading PERM filers in recent years. The immediate certification freeze falls hardest on their employees. Many of these employees are Indian professionals seeking to convert temporary status into permanent residency.
The human stakes are large. Indian nationals have received over half of all PERM certifications issued in most recent years. Hundreds of thousands of approved EB-2 petitions from India are waiting in the backlog. …
What are the challenges before the Indian economy when the world is moving away from free trade and multilateralism to protectionism and bilateralism? How can these challenges be met?
How would the recent phenomena of protectionism and currency manipulations in world trade affect macroeconomic stability of India?
With reference to US work and immigration visas, consider the following pairs:
1.H-1B visa — Non-immigrant visa for specialty occupations
2.PERM — Final stage certifying approval of a green card
3.I-140 — Immigrant petition filed after labour certification
How many of the above pairs are correctly matched?
Consider the following statements regarding the US employment-based green card process:
1.PERM (Permanent Labor Certification) must be completed before an employer files an I-140 immigrant petition.
2.Employment-based green cards are capped at a fixed percentage per country regardless of applicant numbers.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
The EB-2 employment-based green card category primarily covers which of the following?
A 'Global Capability Centre (GCC)', as the term is used in India's technology sector, refers to which of the following?
Want the full note, Prelims Facts & MCQ answers?
Create a free account — takes less than a minute.
Create free account