So, min. wage is now $130.000, so is it now time to say goodbye for H1-B visa option for residency and fellowship?
The H-1B Visa Revival Bill
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The good news here is that you're wrong. Read this for a full explanation: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-masters-degree-exception-being-referenced-in-the-new-H1B-bill
You'll see that the $60K to 100K increase has nothing to do with what an H1b visa salary needs to be. The change is a way to expose companies that have high proportions of H1b employees to US employees by making less of them exempt to reporting.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that it's totally unclear what's going to happen with H visas (or J visas) and residency spots. We clearly have more residency spots than graduating US seniors. However, whether there are more US citizens (including US IMG's + US grads + DO grads) is a more complicated question.
The GME census (published annually in JAMA) lists just under 28K total allopathic PGY-1 positions -- presumably the difference (from NRMP data) is spots outside the match (although it's hard to tell for sure).
Via the NRMP data, there were 18.7K US grads, and 2.4K matched DO grads (We will assume for this discussion that all unmatched DO grads obtained spots in the AOA system). So that's 21.1K people, leaving 6.9K spots.
There were 7.3K US IMG's in the match. 1.4K of them withdrew - likely because they failed a step or were not able to start training on time or got a spot outside the match.
So, one might be able to make the argument that there is no need for non-US IMG's, as there are enough US grads + DO's + US IMG's to fill all spots. Or, that the number of needed FMG's is quite small to fill any gap.
So the whole visa program for FMG's is somewhat unstable. We have an administration that appears to be pro-US citizen, and I expect that if people complain that US IMG's are getting squeezed out by FMG's on visas, we could see some pressure to "fix" the situation.In any case, the whole H visa situation is unstable on it's own -- part of getting an H visa is attesting that you can't find a simlarly qualified US citizen to do the job. If a US IMg who doesn't find a spot challenges an H visa, they will likely win (regardless of what Trump/repubs do) -- either the courts will support them (would hinge on whether "similarly qualified" = passed the boards and graduated from medical school, or whether programs can say that an FMG that did "better" in school / boards is "more qualified" than a US-IMG who didn't), or it will simply tie up an H visa start long enough that programs will simply abandon them anyway.
My apologies, this is incorrect. It is only true for "H1b dependent" employers, which is defined as >15% of the workforce is on an H1b. Since that includes all employees (not just residents), it's unlikely to apply to any residency program. If not H1b dependent, then the only purpose of the mandatory reporting is to ensure that H1b workers are paid the same as US workers (as far as I can see).
This is spelled out at the DOL website: U.S. Department of Labor - Wage and Hour Division (WHD) - Fact Sheet
You'll see that the $60K to 100K increase has nothing to do with what an H1b visa salary needs to be. The change is a way to expose companies that have high proportions of H1b employees to US employees by making less of them exempt to reporting.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that it's totally unclear what's going to happen with H visas (or J visas) and residency spots. We clearly have more residency spots than graduating US seniors. However, whether there are more US citizens (including US IMG's + US grads + DO grads) is a more complicated question.
The GME census (published annually in JAMA) lists just under 28K total allopathic PGY-1 positions -- presumably the difference (from NRMP data) is spots outside the match (although it's hard to tell for sure).
Via the NRMP data, there were 18.7K US grads, and 2.4K matched DO grads (We will assume for this discussion that all unmatched DO grads obtained spots in the AOA system). So that's 21.1K people, leaving 6.9K spots.
There were 7.3K US IMG's in the match. 1.4K of them withdrew - likely because they failed a step or were not able to start training on time or got a spot outside the match.
So, one might be able to make the argument that there is no need for non-US IMG's, as there are enough US grads + DO's + US IMG's to fill all spots. Or, that the number of needed FMG's is quite small to fill any gap.
So the whole visa program for FMG's is somewhat unstable. We have an administration that appears to be pro-US citizen, and I expect that if people complain that US IMG's are getting squeezed out by FMG's on visas, we could see some pressure to "fix" the situation.
My apologies, this is incorrect. It is only true for "H1b dependent" employers, which is defined as >15% of the workforce is on an H1b. Since that includes all employees (not just residents), it's unlikely to apply to any residency program. If not H1b dependent, then the only purpose of the mandatory reporting is to ensure that H1b workers are paid the same as US workers (as far as I can see).
This is spelled out at the DOL website: U.S. Department of Labor - Wage and Hour Division (WHD) - Fact Sheet
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Appreciate the informative reply.
Do you think current J1/H1b holders/residents should be concerned, or just people trying to get into residency? It appears H1b is more under target compard to J1, is this a fair assessment?
Thanks a lot again for clarification
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Remember, this is only a bill. It's not law. And I believe the fine print states that this only affects H1b-depndent employers, meaning employers that have more than 15% of their workforce on H1b's, which usually doesn't apply to academic medical centers.
Don't freak out. Nothing is clear at this point and no one really knows anything.
Don't freak out. Nothing is clear at this point and no one really knows anything.
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PistolPete is correct, this is only a bill. It's been introduced several times and gone nowhere. So unclear what might or might not change.
Trump has he is interested in revamping all of the visa programs used by residents - H, J, and OPT. Given repub control of both houses and the WH, I expect something will happen. But what that will be, and when, is anyone's guess.
In general, people with visas already are in a better spot than those needing new visas.
Trump has he is interested in revamping all of the visa programs used by residents - H, J, and OPT. Given repub control of both houses and the WH, I expect something will happen. But what that will be, and when, is anyone's guess.
In general, people with visas already are in a better spot than those needing new visas.
As we know the 2017 match results now: Can we have an idea how many H1 and J1 Visa people matched? If significant number are matched, what happens to them when they are about to start their residency by July 2017? without Visa because of recent restrictions!!!??? Recent data shows, significant FMGs without US citizenship or green card got matched.... Am I right !!??
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I edited my comments above, as I was incorrect on the thread. You probably can't simply contest an H visa.
The advance data tables from the NRMP match show that there were 3814 non-US citizens who matched to spots. There's no way to know what fields these are, nor which programs as all of the other tables released so far show only US grads and "all others", which would include US IMG's.
There should be no problem getting J visas except from the countries blocked by the EO, but the EO is now on hold so as long as those visas get filed before the legal process plays out, those people should be fine. H visas are a problem due to the removal of premium processing (which was ordered by Obama if what I've read is correct, and has simply now come to fruition).
From a practical standpoint, people's matches are legally binding until it is 100% clear that they won't be able to start by July 1 and the program decides to start the match waiver process. So it will be some time before anyone actually loses a spot due to a visa problem.
The advance data tables from the NRMP match show that there were 3814 non-US citizens who matched to spots. There's no way to know what fields these are, nor which programs as all of the other tables released so far show only US grads and "all others", which would include US IMG's.
There should be no problem getting J visas except from the countries blocked by the EO, but the EO is now on hold so as long as those visas get filed before the legal process plays out, those people should be fine. H visas are a problem due to the removal of premium processing (which was ordered by Obama if what I've read is correct, and has simply now come to fruition).
From a practical standpoint, people's matches are legally binding until it is 100% clear that they won't be able to start by July 1 and the program decides to start the match waiver process. So it will be some time before anyone actually loses a spot due to a visa problem.
