How do H1B visa holders work for two or more employers concurrently?

Highlights: How H1B visa holders can work for 2 or more employers

• Concurrent employment is possible for H1B visa holders in the US.
• Foreign workers with an H1B visa can work for more than one employer simultaneously.
• A migrant in the US on an H1B visa must first accept and start employment with the original US employer.
• Any number of US employers can go through the H1B visa process to recruit a migrant under the concurrent employment system.
• Foreign workers can hold any number of concurrent H1B visas provided the cumulative hours worked is possible and plausible.

Do you agree that two jobs are better than one? If you do, then you need to be told about concurrent employment in the USA and how it’s related to the H1B visa.

What’s the H1B visa?

The H1B visa is a US work visa that falls under the non-immigrant visa category. This visa lets US employers hire workers from abroad for jobs that require specialized skills and knowledge. Employees recruited for these jobs must have a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent. The major fields of occupation this visa benefits from are, IT, engineering, finance, and architecture among others.

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How can you work for two or more with one H1B visa?

The relevance of “concurrent employment” comes while considering the possibility of your holding one H1B visa and working for more than one employer in the USA.

Basically, you arrive in the US being recruited by a US employer who initiates and goes through an H1B process for you to be granted the visa. You will be working full-time with this US employer.

H1B process in a nutshell

The US employer will file a petition for you after you have been selected to apply for an H1B visa.

To follow the procedure, the US employer will submit an LCA (Labor Condition Application) to the DOL (Department of Labor). The LCA certification establishes the fact that the employer will pay you wages paid to workers qualified similarly to you in the same region. It also confirms that your recruitment won’t affect the employees already working for this employer.

Once the LCA application is approved, the next step will be completing Form I-129. After the US employer does this, and this Form for application is accepted, it’s your turn to complete Form DS-160. You pay the application fee and schedule your interview at the US embassy/consulate. If all goes well, you get the H1B visa.

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The “concurrent” part

In case another employer in the US is interested in you, that employer can also recruit you to work for them. That employer will have to go through the H1B process again for you specifying that they are accepting you under a concurrent employment arrangement. This specification will be given while completing Form I-129.

The number of concurrent H1B visas that you can hold as an employee has no limit. The only point to ensure is that the cumulative hours you will work have to be possible and plausible.

Also, the employer taking you as a concurrent employee needn’t inform the primary recruiter who sponsored you originally for H1B about your concurrent employment.

Another fact to be learned is that even if you leave employment with your original sponsor employer or get terminated, it doesn’t affect your concurrent employment. You can continue working in the US for the employer you are working with under a concurrent employment arrangement. You will maintain your H1B status and can legally stay in the USA.

Note that getting an H1B visa petition approved won’t make your concurrent H1B petitions automatically approved as well.

The bottom line

The “concurrent employment” is an opportunity for H1B visa holders to work for more employers in the US and earn more. If you migrate to USA to take advantage of this, it will be a significant move for your career. Just b confident that you can manage the concurrent employment well and perform efficiently.

If you are willing to migrate to USA, talk to Y-Axis, the leading immigration and career consultant in the UAE.

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