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US employers hiring international expert employees should now pay a $100,000 utility payment.
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The worth hike provides stress to consulting corporations’ already fragile expertise methods.
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The modifications will increase competitors for experience and speed up offshoring, analysts advised Enterprise Insider.
Consulting corporations could also be much less outspoken than tech CEOs, however they’re staring down the identical staffing drawback as Silicon Valley after President Donald Trump launched a $100,000 H-1B utility payment final Friday.
The H-1B program quickly permits employers to rent international expert employees for specialised jobs.
The Division of Labor experiences that just about 50% of H-1B purposes are associated to “skilled, scientific, and technical companies” — with skilled companies usually referring to the consulting and accounting work carried out by corporations like Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC.
James Ransome, a accomplice and technique consulting lead at Patrick Morgan — a agency centered on govt recruitment and trade evaluation — stated that Friday’s govt order had raised concern over expertise acquisition amongst consulting leaders.
“For a lot of corporations, the H-1B route has been a gentle pipeline for mid-level consultants with robust technical and analytical abilities, roles which might be troublesome to fill at scale within the US home market. Leaders are involved this alteration provides additional friction at a time when competitors for expertise is already excessive,” stated Ransome.
In accordance with the US authorities’s H-1B employer knowledge hub, Deloitte, EY, and Accenture are the skilled companies corporations that rent essentially the most staff with H-1B visas.
Within the final three years as much as April 2025, Deloitte employed 7,535 employees on H-1B visas, making it the eleventh largest US employer of H-1B visa holders. The quantity represents roughly 1% of its most just lately reported US head rely.
At Accenture and EY, H-1B visa holders employed within the final three years — 5,862 and 5,298, respectively — symbolize virtually 10% of every agency’s final reported US headcounts of round 60,000. The info doesn’t replicate what number of stay employed by the corporations.
Deloitte, EY, and Accenture didn’t reply to requests for remark from Enterprise Insider.
Ransome stated he anticipated the Large 4 and top-tier corporations to soak up a few of the greater prices of the visas to take care of staffing continuity. However they’d seemingly take a “twin strategy” and shift their staffing fashions alongside any price absorption, he stated.
Smaller gamers within the consulting trade might want to up their potential to draw home expertise, particularly mid-level hires, he added.
