How many new H-1B visa applications submitted by the "Big 5" tech companies will the U.S. grant between October 1, 2020 and September 30, 2021, inclusive?

Multiple choice Opened 1 June 2020 Closed 25 February 2021 Resolved 31 January 2022 124 forecasts 78 forecasters

Context. H-1B is a visa category for skilled workers, accounting for about 108,000 annual entrants (Arnold et al.

✎ Edit Sign). It's also a common immigration pathway for AI-skilled workers.

Data and resolution details. This question resolves based on "initial approvals" reported in the USCIS annual summary for FY 2021. The chart below is based on the same data for previous fiscal years. The"Big 5" tech companies are Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft, including all affiliates with those words at the beginning of their title. For example, Amazon includes Amazon Web Services and Amazon Fulfillment Services. The date range, October 1 through September 30, is the government fiscal year.

The H-1B Employer Data Hub provides quarterly updates on H-1B statistics. For example, if one downloads all data for FY 2020 and then filters by the Big-5 tech companies, they'll see H-1B statistics as of the most recent quarter for which there's data. As of December 2020, the Employer Data Hub has data through Q3 of FY 2020 (June 30, 2020). In the first three quarters of FY 2020, 4,650 new H-1B applications submitted by the "Big 5" tech companies were granted. This figure is not reflected in the chart below.

The data underlying the graph is here.

This question is a metric for the following scenarios:

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Outcome

Answer	Final crowd forecast	Resolution
Less than 5,000	28%	Did not happen
Between 5,000 and 7,500, inclusive	28%	Did not happen
More than 7,500 but less than or equal to 10,000	25%	Did not happen
More than 10,000 but less than or equal to12,500	12%	Happened
More than12,500	6%	Did not happen

“Final crowd forecast” is the last aggregate crowd probability computed before the question closed – the right-hand end of the chart below, which this table is the accessible equivalent of.

Crowd forecast over time

Less than 5,000 Between 5,000 and 7,500, inclusive More than 7,500 but less than or equal to 10,000 More than 10,000 but less than or equal to12,500 More than12,500

The aggregate crowd probability, one point per day, from RFI's primary aggregation method. Gaps are days with no computed aggregate. Individual forecasts are not shown.