India-based IT companies secured only 4,573 approved H-1B petitions for initial employment in FY 2025, marking a dramatic 70% drop compared with 2015 and 37% fewer than last year, according to the National Foundation for American Policy. Analysts say this shift reflects a structural transition: Indian IT giants are leaning less on onsite workers in the US, while American tech companies are aggressively scaling up hiring of foreign-born talent — especially recent graduates — to support massive investments in artificial intelligence.
TCS was the only Indian IT firm to appear in the Top 5 for continued-employment approvals, although its H-1B extension rejection rate rose to 7% in FY 2025, up from 4% a year earlier. Overall, denial rates for continuing employment remained low across the industry at 1.9%, slightly below last year’s 1.8%. TCS received 5,293 continuing-employment approvals and 846 initial approvals — a sharp decline from 1,452 initial approvals in FY 2024. Only three India-headquartered firms appeared anywhere in the Top 25 list for initial H-1B approvals this year.
In stark contrast, US tech giants now dominate new H-1B hiring. Amazon topped FY 2025 initial approvals with 4,644, followed by Meta (1,555), Microsoft (1,394), and Google (1,050) — the first time all top four slots have gone to American companies. Amazon also led continuing-employment approvals with 14,532. Employers in California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, and Virginia accounted for the highest number of new H-1B approvals, with New York City ranking first among US cities.
Immigration experts say US tech companies are hiring thousands of specialised workers because demand for AI-related skills has far outpaced domestic talent supply. As Amanda Brill of Brill Immigration noted, many immigrants are already trained for high-skilled roles that the US workforce has not yet scaled to meet.
