Laid-off tech employees with H1B visa might get 6 month extension to find new job

The laid-off employees with H1B visas in the tech industry might be happy to know that they could get 180 days of extension to find a new job, which is 6 months. As part of the ongoing layoffs in the tech world, the US presidential advisory sub-committee has advised extending the grace period for H1B employees to help them find a good job without panicking or worrying about the expiry date of visas.

The immigration committee in the US has told the Department of Homeland Security and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that extension for the grace period of H1-B visas is needed to give laid-off workers more time to find a better job, Ajay Jain Bhutoria, member of the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, said. If the extension gets approved, it will likely take months to make it a reality, as per experts in legal matters.

The tech industry has been going through a tough time as many companies are experiencing a slowdown in revenue and so are firing thousands of employees to save cost. While more than 1 lakh workers have so far been impacted by the layoff process going on in tech companies, the ones who have H1B visas have been affected the worst as they have limited time to find a new job or they will be forced to leave the foreign country.

After losing a job, H1B visa holders currently only have 60 days to find a new job if they want to continue their stay in a foreign country or they will have to leave it and go to their home country. Several laid-off tech employees have expressed their disappointment and anger on LinkedIn about struggling to find a new job within the mentioned time period. This is not surprising considering most of the tech companies are firing employees across regions in the name of restructuring as well as saving costs.

Just a few days back, Facebook's owner Meta announced the layoff of another 10,000 employees. This announcement comes a few months after the tech company sacked 11,000 workers in 2022. Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed the layoff process has already begun and it will continue until the next few months.

In the official email, Zuckerberg suggested that Meta is having financial issues and that the company plans to use resources efficiently to improve business and achieve better results. He revealed that Meta witnessed high growth before 2022, but the company struggled in terms of revenue after its growth slowed down and competition increased.