Why Hong Kong must seize opening of Trump’s H-1B visa chaos

The US’ shake-up of its H-1B visa programme has left businesses scrambling to respond. On September 19, President Donald Trump announced that companies hiring foreign nationals to work in the United States under the scheme would be charged an extra US$100,000 per beneficiary, effective from September 21. The vague language of the proclamation created widespread confusion. Companies that feared their H-1B employees would be denied entry were forced to urgently recall employees on holiday or business trips.

Five days later, the administration announced it plans to revamp the visa selection process to favour higher-skilled and better-paid workers.

As an employer with workers worldwide, I believe this presents Hong Kong with an opportunity. As multinational companies in the US mull their response to the visa changes, Hong Kong should step forward. The city should promote its immigration policies, such as the Top Talent Pass Scheme, to employers and talented individuals facing H-1B visa issues, to persuade them to invest and live here.

There are three main arguments for pursuing H-1B workers being driven out of the US. First, most of the current major H-1B employers are engaged in strategic industries, such as finance or information technology, which are in line with Hong Kong’s future development needs.

The H-1B programme has an annual quota of 85,000 places for new applicants, though not all employers are subject to this cap. About 400,000 H-1B applications were approved in the 2024 fiscal year. Almost half of the approved H-1B applications for that year came from the “professional, scientific and technical services” sector, with manufacturing and information next at 11 per cent and 9 per cent of approvals, respectively.

Among individual employers, Amazon had the most approvals in 2023, with more than 11,000, or 2.9 per cent of all approvals. Other familiar names in the top 10 included Infosys, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta and JPMorgan.

  

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