Update Applicable to:
Any employers looking to utilize the H-1B visa program.

What happened?
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced a final rule that will modify the H-1B cap selection process, amend current lottery procedures, and prioritize wages.

What are the details?
Previously the H-1b visa program awarded the visa to companies on a lottery basis, where companies would all have a relatively equal chance of winning the award. The new system will instead award the H1b visas with a focus on higher paid wages, making the visas much more competitive in respect to wages.

These rule changes will only affect H-1B registrations (or petitions, if the registration process is suspended) submitted by prospective petitioners seeking to file H-1B cap-subject petitions. It will be implemented for both the H-1B regular cap and the H-1B advanced degree exemption, but it will not change the order of selection between the two as established by the H-1B registration final rule.

The final rule can be found here.

What do employers need to do?
Employers looking to utilize the H-1b visa program should keep in mind the new selection process when submitting petitions for the visa program.