Tag: US

While, the executive order, at present, temporarily bans some immigration – notably, those who were waiting for a green card outside the US, with some exceptions carved out – a review of the non-immigrant visa programmes within 30 days of the proclamation is going to put H-1B and L visas (used for intra-company transfers) under another round of stress test.

The US Senate on Tuesday unanimously approved $484 billion in additional coronavirus relief for the US economy and hospitals treating people sickened by the pandemic, sending the measure to the House of Representatives for final passage later this week.

The telephone lines have been ringing at Adler Tank Rentals in Texas as oil companies found a new use for steel tanks that had been left idle when shale producers stopped drilling – they want to use the tanks to store some of an oil glut that has overwhelmed the market and flipped US crude prices negative for the first time.

The price of a barrel of benchmark US oil plunged below $0 a barrel on Monday for the first time in history, a troubling sign of an unprecedented global energy glut as the coronavirus pandemic halts travel and curbs economic activity.

A record 22 million Americans have sought unemployment benefits over the past month, with millions more filing claims last week, underscoring the deepening economic slump caused by the novel coronavirus outbreak. Thursday’s weekly jobless claims report from the labor department followed dismal data on Wednesday showing a record drop in retail sales in March and the biggest decline in factory output since 1946.

The Indian rupee tanked 43 paise to settle at an all-time low of 76.87 (provisional) against the US dollar on Thursday, amid rising concerns over coronavirus-led economic slowdown. At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened weak at 76.75, and during the day lost further ground to settle at 76.87, registering a fall of 43 paise over its previous close.

In a big relief for thousands of stranded Indian professionals in America due to the coronavirus pandemic, the US government has decided to allow applications by H-1B visa holders for an extended stay. The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.

US unemployment is rising at a jarring rate, with data on Thursday showing 17 million have lost their jobs since mid-March, as officials scramble to apply a tourniquet to stem the damage from the coronavirus pandemic. The Federal Reserve launched a series of new lending programs to pump $2.3 trillion into the damaged US economy, reassuring people of a revival.

The rupee plunged by 70 paise to its life-time low of 76.34 against the US dollar on Wednesday as a rise in coronavirus cases in the country fanned fears of the government extending the lockdown to contain the pandemic. Forex traders said rising Brent crude prices and a firm US currency also weighed on the local unit.

The Trump Organisation — the conglomerate of companies created by Trump and now run by his sons — is, like many others, losing money as the restrictions put in place to lessen the spread of deadly COVID-19 bring the US to a grinding halt.

The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits shot to a record high of more than 6 million last week as more jurisdictions enforced stay-at-home measures to curb the coronavirus pandemic, which economists say has pushed the economy into recession.

Furloughs, leave without pay, salary cuts, layoffs – that’s the story across sectors as the pandemic deepens the economic crisis. Employees of US conglomerate Honeywell, which has a large engineering centre and operations in India, have to take two weeks of unpaid leave in April and May.

A bulk of H-1B cap registrations, received by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, were for potential beneficiaries (workers) from India. Of the 2.75 lakh registrations received from sponsoring employers wish to depute or hire workers in the US, nearly 67.7% or 1.86 lakh were from India. Registrations were also filed for 36,300 (13.2%) Chinese workers.

Fearing massive layoffs in America due to the coronavirus crisis that is hitting businesses around the globe, foreign technology professionals on H-1B visas, the most sought after among Indians, demand the Trump administration extend their permissible post-job loss limit to stay in the US from the existing 60 to 180 days.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said it has reached the congressionally-mandated 65,000 H-1B cap for the fiscal year 2021 as it received enough requests from corporations and businesses.

The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits surged to a record of more than 3 million last week as strict measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic brought the country to a sudden halt, unleashing a wave of layoffs that likely ended the longest employment boom in US history.