The U.S. Department of State puts out a visa bulletin, which often contains stats and figures about immigration in the country. One of the latest updates includes the number of estimated employment-based visas.
It’s important to note that these visas are for the 2024 fiscal year, so this is a projection of what is expected until September 30, 2024, which is the end of the fiscal year – despite being a few months before the end of the calendar year.
In any case, in 2024, the bulletin indicates that there should be around 165,000 employment-based visas.
How does this compare to other years?
Interestingly, it does appear that the number of employment-based visas being given out is trending downward. For the fiscal year of 2022, for example, there were 281,507 employment-based visas. This was double the total that was usually seen in a single year.
That said, the reason for the high number of employment visas was that family visas from the fiscal year 2021, which often were not used, were then added to the employment visas for the following year. In that sense, 2022 was something of an outlier, as that is not projected to happen in most years.
In some cases, there are country-based limits for employment basis. This has led to questions about how family-sponsored visas could be switched over to employment visas without altering these limits. The extra visas were added to the overall limit, but country limits were still held in place, even with these additions.
Moving forward with the process
It’s clear that employment immigration is still going to be common in the United States, as one of the main ways that people come to the country. Those who are going through this process must know exactly what legal steps to take.