H4 Remote Jobs and H1b Layoffs

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From 2015 it has become a trend for many companies to offer 1-2 day’s work from home per week for their employees.

With the advent of COVID, more Fortune 500 companies are exploring the option to offer full-time remote jobs and contract positions to potential employees.

Some companies ask employees to come onsite for 1-2 weeks for onboarding procedures like signing i9 form, knowledge transfer and issuance of company laptop for remote positions.

Other companies complete the onboarding procedure fully remotely by asking the new employee to complete the i9 through a remote notary.

The company laptop and other equipment are mailed to the employee. With the advent of collaboration software like teams, it is easy to attend daily scrum standups and other meetings for fully remote employees.

For 11 years, the American Stock market was a Bull market which helped many corporations to thrive. New tech companies were born every day. Larger corporations could pledge their highly valued management stocks to fund new projects.

Many IT employees saw their next egg 401k retirement plans increase in value due to a good stock market.

The COVID pandemic has bought the whole world to a grinding halt. The 2020 stock market crash happened on 20th February 2020. Economists and corporation CEO's have resigned to the fact that Q2 for 2020 will be the worst quarter for corporate earnings.

The 2 trillion stimulus package will ease the financial burden of many Fortune 500 companies and will prevent layoffs in Q2. The question in everybody's mind is whether COVID cases will continue to increase after Q2 of 2020.

If the stay at home orders continue after Q2 there will be layoffs for corporate IT employees in sectors like retail, manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, airlines, hospitality and tourism-related industries.

Banking, insurance, utilities, healthcare and telecommunications will be less affected even if the COVID epidemic continues into Q3.

If an H-1b employee is laid off they have 60 days to find another job under existing guidelines. There is unconfirmed news that USCIS will extend the layoff to 180 days.

A lawsuit has been filed by American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) to extend the deadline from 60 days for laid-off H-1B employees until the COVID emergency is over. There will be some type of relief that is going to be announced by USCIS shortly for laid-off H-1B employees.

Many H4 employees have good technical skills but are limited to find new job opportunities due to location constraints.

With remote IT positions, this issue is solved. If an H-1B employee is laid off and the dependent H4 employee finds a new remote position, health insurance benefits can be continued until the H1B primary beneficiary finds another job.

The S386, which will remove the per-country quota is currently on hold because of the COVID situation but the bill has good chances of passing in August or September in the Senate and the House.

The 2020 updated S386 bill also has a provision to issue unrestricted EADs and travel documents to H-1B employees with approved I-140 which will help them change employers easily in case of layoffs.

This is a sponsored article. We are currently hiring for .Net, Java, Python, Ruby on Rails, Middleware, BA and QA positions. Please send your resume to [email protected] if you are interested in this opportunity.

If you are laid from your current job or a layoff is imminent and need h1b sponsorship, please email your resume to [email protected]