Demand for high-skill US visas down from last year

Demand for visas for highly skilled workers has fallen sharply from last year as the American economy has slowed, the U.S. Homeland Security Department said on Wednesday.

The department's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency said they had so far received slightly more than half the applications it needs to fill the 85,000 spots for so-called H1B visas for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

The agency began taking applications on April 1 and a spokeswoman said it had received "about half" the applications it needs for the 65,000 standard spots, though it has nearly all of the applications it needs to fill the 20,000 spots reserved for those with master's degrees or higher. A year ago, the agency had received about 163,000 total applications.

The agency is continuing to accept applications until it has enough to fill the quota. The spokeswoman said applications in the past two years were higher than normal.