 The US Department of Labor (DOL) Office of Foreign Labor certification (OFLC) has published statistics for the past year's H-1B, H-1B1 and E-3 applications. These statistics relate to prevailing wage requests received by DOL only, not the H-1B petitions filed with USCIS. Many of these LCA's would have been for H-1B extensions, not new cases, which is why the number of applications is much higher than the H-1B cap quota. DOL received almost 600,000 applications and certified 567,000. Some of the applications were for multiple positions, so DOL certified applications for 1.19 million positions. Top Occupations Not surprisingly, the highest number of LCAs were filed for computer-related occupations - a whopping 71% of the total. The next highest category was Accountants and Auditors, at 21% of the total.  Top 10 Employers The high number of LCAs filed for accounting professions might be because the top employer was Deloitte Consulting, which filed 118,000 applications. Of course, Deloitte also files in other occupations, including high tech professions. Deloitte & Touche is separately listed as #9 on the list of top 10 employers. The top 10 employer list is heavily dominated by tech companies, e.g. Cognizant, Tata, Wipro, and others.  Top States
California topped the list of states at 17%. Next came Texas (9%), New York (8%) and New Jersey (7%).
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 The US Department of State has published precise details about the 2017 Diversity Visa lottery here (2 weeks after the registration period started).
Online registration for the DV 2017 Program began on October 1, 2015 and ends on Tuesday, November 3, 2015 at 12:00 noon, US Eastern Standard Time (EST). The following countries are NOT eligible to apply for the lottery: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam. People born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, and Taiwan are eligible. Even if you were born in one of the above countries, you may still be eligible if (a) your spouse was born in a qualifying country; or (b) you meet the requirements for claiming a parent's birth country. Lottery entrants will find out if they are accepted on or after May 3, 2016. As a "winner" of the lottery myself, 21 years ago, I encourage everyone who is eligible to apply as soon as possible. The odds may be long, but somebody has to win. Good luck! Full details of DV-2017 are here and here. More information about the Diversity Visa category generally is here and here. |
AuthorElaine Martin has been practising US and global immigration law since 1997. She is an immigrant herself (from Ireland), so has a special understanding of the legal and emotional challenges involved in relocating to a new country. 
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