Tata Consultancy Services is the only Indian firm among the top 10 companies to receive foreign labour certification for the H-1B visas in the United States for the fiscal year 2018 ending September 30, PTI reported on Tuesday.

The firm got 20,755 such certifications, according to official data from the US Labour Department, released in its annual report earlier this month.

Under the H-1B visa programme, companies can temporarily employ foreign workers in the US on a non-immigrant basis in specialty occupations or as fashion models of distinguished merit and ability. Indians comprise around 70% of all H-1B workers in the US, many in the information technology sector.

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The top employer to have received the certification is Ernst & Young, based in London. With 1,51,164 H-1B specialist occupation labour certifications, the company accounted for 12.4% of all foreign labour certification for the H-1B work visas for 2018.

Deloitte Consulting, which is second, received 69,869 H-1B specialty occupations labour conditions programme. Indian-American owned Cognizant Technology Corp is number three with 47,732 specialty occupations labour conditions programme, followed by HCL America (42,820), K Force Inc (32,996), and Apple (26,833).

A specialty occupation requires the theoretical and practical application of specialised knowledge and a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent in the specific specialty, such as medicine, healthcare, biotechnology, sciences, education, business, among others.

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The US Congress has capped the annual number of qualifying foreign workers who may be issued a visa or be given the H-1B status to 65,000. An additional 20,000 workers are allowed under the H-1B advanced degree exemption.

In the current fiscal year, the Department of Labour’s Office of Foreign Labour Certification processed 654,360 applications for the H-1B specialty occupations labour conditions programme.