Donald Trump’s crackdown on work visas in the US has hardly deterred Indian techies.
Between April 1, 2018 and March 31, 2019, 3.7% of the total clicks on US-based tech jobs on Indeed.com came from India, according to data from the portal.
At 0.6%, Canada trailed at a distant second in clicks coming from IP addresses outside the US.
Indians’ craze for American jobs has survived a series of steps by the Trump administration that make it harder for foreign workers to get the highly sought-after H-1B visa, which allows a professional to live and work in the US for up to six years. Indians are the biggest beneficiaries of the H-1B.
However, the protectionist environment may have started to take a toll lately.
In January-March 2019, Indian techies’ clicks on US-based jobs fell by nearly 8% year-on-year on Indeed.com. Techies from the UK and Pakistan were even less inclined to apply than those from India.
Meanwhile, Germany, France, and Russia posted the largest year-over-year increases in their shares of clicks on US tech job listings, each up over 25%.
Types of jobs
“Foreign interest appears to be highest for difficult-to-fill tech jobs,” the report said. Data show there is a higher foreign click share on job listings that have lower clicks overall.
Moreover, tech jobs with higher average salaries also had higher foreign clicks. “This relationship may reflect visa requirements,” the report said. “Visas, such as the H-1B, are expensive to process. To make it worthwhile to an employer, these workers should be highly skilled and worth the cost.”
Developer and engineer roles were most sought after while technician and support roles drew the least attention among foreigner jobseekers, as per Indeed’s analysis of tech jobs with a minimum of 50,000 total clicks.