EB2 Predictions (Rather Calculations) - 2012

[bieber]

The bulletin is taken down from the website, also the pdf version

[qesehmk]

Friends,
Regardless what the bulletin says - and i haven't seen it yet - the inventory actually is a great news. It shows EB2I demand at around 1200 per month and EB2C at 300 per month. I think at that rate, it is absolutely possible to clear 2008 in 2013. And after that my guess is 2009 and 2010 will be cleared by 2014. Just a rough feeling.

For the rest of the year - the dates certainly aren't moving beyond 2007 - if at all - for EB2IC.

I will update this data in the SSFT tool as well to reflect the "demand destruction". And yes - although I was right on my advice to Teddy on demand data, I also admit that demad destruction is real. 2009 data proves that beyond doubt.

[GhostWriter]

Q, i am missing the "good" part in the news. If you look at the inventory the ratio of overall I485s filed to expected I485s (based on PERM) for 2008 is 85% and for 2009 is 87%. See my post above. Either there is low demand destruction or even if we assume 20-25% DD it gets reduced by 12% or more porting. So overall for EB2-IC the inventory is only 15% lower than Spec's PERM numbers. Though i agree with you that 2008 can be cleared in 2013. But that is not a good news. Till few months back except for Spec almost everyone was expecting dates to reach Q1 or Q2 of 2008 by Sep-2012. Full credit goes to Spec in pointing out much ahead of time that EB2 will not reach 2008, EB2-IC can become unavailable and EB2-ROW can have a cut-off date. I guess the expectations now will become more realistic.

Friends,
Regardless what the bulletin says - and i haven't seen it yet - the inventory actually is a great news. It shows EB2I demand at around 1200 per month and EB2C at 300 per month. I think at that rate, it is absolutely possible to clear 2008 in 2013. And after that my guess is 2009 and 2010 will be cleared by 2014. Just a rough feeling.

For the rest of the year - the dates certainly aren't moving beyond 2007 - if at all - for EB2IC.

I will update this data in the SSFT tool as well to reflect the "demand destruction". And yes - although I was right on my advice to Teddy on demand data, I also admit that demad destruction is real. 2009 data proves that beyond doubt.

[shashinehal]

All,

I am getting to page not found on clicking on below link. And also the landing page it says June coming soon.

http://travel.state.gov/visa/bulleti...etin_5712.html

Any good news on the way

[suninphx]

Q, i am missing the "good" part in the news. If you look at the inventory the ratio of overall I485s filed to expected I485s (based on PERM) for 2008 is 85% and for 2009 is 87%. See my post above. Either there is low demand destruction or even if we assume 20-25% DD it gets reduced by 12% or more porting. So overall for EB2-IC the inventory is only 15% lower than Spec's PERM numbers. Though i agree with you that 2008 can be cleared in 2013. But that is not a good news. Till few months back except for Spec almost everyone was expecting dates to reach Q1 or Q2 of 2008 by Sep-2012. Full credit goes to Spec in pointing out much ahead of time that EB2 will not reach 2008, EB2-IC can become unavailable and EB2-ROW can have a cut-off date. I guess the expectations now will become more realistic.

IMHO, 20-25% demand destruction is not bad at all. Without that we were looking at much higher inventory for EB2IC.

[redsox2009]

E. EMPLOYMENT FIRST AND SECOND PREFERENCE VISA AVAILABILITY

" Item F of the May Visa Bulletin (number 44) provided projections regarding visa availability in the coming months. Information received from the USCIS after the publication of that item requires an update in the projections for the Employment First and Second preference categories.

Employment First: Based on the current rate of demand, it may be necessary to establish a cut-off date at the end of the fiscal year in an effort to limit number use within the annual numerical limit.

Employment Second: Based on the current rate of demand, it may be necessary to establish a cut-off date for this category for all countries other than China and India. Such action may be required at any time during the next few months."


I don't believe this prediction, is Travel dept is saying all 80K visas for EB1 and EB2 are completely exhausted and no more visas available for next 6 months and yet they are promising Eb2 IC with PD's March 2010 will get visas in 2013. There is something wrong with this prediction or with the numbers they are giving to us.

Inventory says that less than 20K visas are issued for EB1 Worldwide and we know that 15K to 20K issued for Indians/Chinese.

I wish I had my second grade math book to send it to Travel dept.

[vizcard]

I don't believe this prediction, is Travel dept is saying all 80K visas for EB1 and EB2 are completely exhausted and no more visas available for next 6 months and yet they are promising Eb2 IC with PD's March 2010 will get visas in 2013. There is something wrong with this prediction or with the numbers they are giving to us.

First of all, there is no "travel dept". Its the Department of State. Secondly, there was no promise made related to EB2IC with PDs up to March 2010 getting visas in 2013. CO said "best efforts will be made".

[qesehmk]

You are missing good part because it's really a great news!

And here is why - normal EB2IC rate is 2.5K per month. We were assuming (I in particular) 1600-2000. While the 2008 rate indeed turned out that much (if you add 5-8K already approved), the 2009 rate is 1.3K. That is 50% demand destruction. Now understand that this works in two ways - a) it reduces EB2IC competing for GCs. b) it also means less EB2ROW and less EB1 - albeit less NOT by 50%. But still.

Going back to prediction of Q1 2008 - if you consider the 5-8K approved for 2008, that is more that sufficient to decimate the entire EB2IC inventory for 2007. That would've brought the dates into Q1 2008. Little did we know that they would approve 2008 over 2007.

Hope this helps.

Q, i am missing the "good" part in the news. If you look at the inventory the ratio of overall I485s filed to expected I485s (based on PERM) for 2008 is 85% and for 2009 is 87%. See my post above. Either there is low demand destruction or even if we assume 20-25% DD it gets reduced by 12% or more porting. So overall for EB2-IC the inventory is only 15% lower than Spec's PERM numbers. Though i agree with you that 2008 can be cleared in 2013. But that is not a good news. Till few months back except for Spec almost everyone was expecting dates to reach Q1 or Q2 of 2008 by Sep-2012. Full credit goes to Spec in pointing out much ahead of time that EB2 will not reach 2008, EB2-IC can become unavailable and EB2-ROW can have a cut-off date. I guess the expectations now will become more realistic.

[Jonty Rhodes]

I don't believe this prediction, is Travel dept is saying all 80K visas for EB1 and EB2 are completely exhausted and no more visas available for next 6 months and yet they are promising Eb2 IC with PD's March 2010 will get visas in 2013. There is something wrong with this prediction or with the numbers they are giving to us.

I agree with vizcard. There is no guarantee that dates will be back to 1 May, 2010 after Spring 2013. Here is what the visa bulletin said,

Every effort will be made to return the China and India Employment Second preference cut-off date to the May 1, 2010 date which had been reached in April 2012. Readers should be advised that it is impossible to accurately estimate how long that may take, but current indications are that it would definitely not occur before spring 2013.

I think this statement is just a hogwash from CO. We all know that logically moving dates up to May 1, 2010 in FY2013 (forget Spring 2013) is not going to be possible unless they create huge artificial backlogs for other categories like EB1, EB2ROW by delaying processing, increasing PERM audits, issuing more RFEs. So I think we should not take this statement seriously because come Spring, 2013, CO will say,

"The demand is huge, visa numbers are not available and dates could not be moved up to May 1, 2010. Every efforts will be made to move the dates to previous cut-off date of May 1, 2010. It is impossible to accurately estimate how long that may take, but current indications are that it would definitely not occur before Spring 2014. And come Spring 2014, this will be repeated and dates will not move before Spring 2015."

[GhostWriter]

Q, i disagree.
For 2008 inventory shows 18,447 for EB2-IC. Add 5000 already given GCs and you get 23,447 i.e. 1954 per month. Expected from PERM filings was 27,657
For 2009 inventory shows 16,342 for EB2-IC which is 1362 per month (as you say) BUT expected from PERM filings was 18,740. No one expected or assumed 2500 per month for 2009.

Where is 50% DD ??. In my opinion the inventory and the visa bulletin confirmed the grim expectations built over last few days and killed any hope for positive news in the short to medium term. EB2-ROW can have cut-off date, EB1 can have cut-off date implying a heavy stress on SOFAD for 2013 and on top of that a 485 inventory which is just 15% less than PERM filings (implying OR of 0.85-0.9) which will only get worse with more porting whenever EB2-I becomes available again. There are 41K I-485s for 2007, 2008 and 2009 which is a heavy inventory.

The only bright side is the confusing statement in the visa bulletin which still promises to bring the dates back to May-2010 as soon as possible and only gives a lower limit of spring 2013 as the estimate for as soon as possible.

You are missing good part because it's really a great news!

And here is why - normal EB2IC rate is 2.5K per month. We were assuming (I in particular) 1600-2000. While the 2008 rate indeed turned out that much (if you add 5-8K already approved), the 2009 rate is 1.3K. That is 50% demand destruction. Now understand that this works in two ways - a) it reduces EB2IC competing for GCs. b) it also means less EB2ROW and less EB1 - albeit less NOT by 50%. But still.

Going back to prediction of Q1 2008 - if you consider the 5-8K approved for 2008, that is more that sufficient to decimate the entire EB2IC inventory for 2007. That would've brought the dates into Q1 2008. Little did we know that they would approve 2008 over 2007.

Hope this helps.

[TeddyKoochu]

You are missing good part because it's really a great news!

And here is why - normal EB2IC rate is 2.5K per month. We were assuming (I in particular) 1600-2000. While the 2008 rate indeed turned out that much (if you add 5-8K already approved), the 2009 rate is 1.3K. That is 50% demand destruction. Now understand that this works in two ways - a) it reduces EB2IC competing for GCs. b) it also means less EB2ROW and less EB1 - albeit less NOT by 50%. But still.

Going back to prediction of Q1 2008 - if you consider the 5-8K approved for 2008, that is more that sufficient to decimate the entire EB2IC inventory for 2007. That would've brought the dates into Q1 2008. Little did we know that they would approve 2008 over 2007.

Hope this helps.

Friends,
Regardless what the bulletin says - and i haven't seen it yet - the inventory actually is a great news. It shows EB2I demand at around 1200 per month and EB2C at 300 per month. I think at that rate, it is absolutely possible to clear 2008 in 2013. And after that my guess is 2009 and 2010 will be cleared by 2014. Just a rough feeling.

For the rest of the year - the dates certainly aren't moving beyond 2007 - if at all - for EB2IC.

I will update this data in the SSFT tool as well to reflect the "demand destruction". And yes - although I was right on my advice to Teddy on demand data, I also admit that demad destruction is real. 2009 data proves that beyond doubt.

Q, I admit that my assessment based on the demand data was way off, 2009 and 2010 were definitely work in progress from the demand data perspective because of not being preadjudicated I had honestly did not expect the actual inventory to be double fully knowing that 2009 and 2010 were WIP.

Let me know your thoughts on the following.

- When the Jan inventory was released the 2008 filing in Dec was not reported correctly.

- Similarly 2009 and 2010 filing has happened in March and April. For the moment just consider 2009, many people would have filed later in March.

- It is therefore a possibility that even the 2009 inventory is not complete it is still Work in progress.

- Fundamentally the perm situation became really bad starting mid 2008, so people who are earlier in this group i.e. mid 2008 are more likely to have suffered more because they had a longer delay in their per cases then someone in Dec 2009.

- When the Jan inventory was released there was a great sense of urgency to work towards a accurate inventory, however by Apr and May the realization had dawned that inventory is already enough and resources may therefore have been allocated to other things like the approvals forEB2 ROW and EB1 cases.

- I believe we need 1 more inventory to see the real 2009 and 2010 inventory the numbers will likely increase.

I feel there is no reason why the demand destruction in 2009 should be that extreme it should pretty much like 2008.

Friends I know that if this is true it is bad news, please don't crucify me just thought about this possibility. Let me know your thoughts.

[qesehmk]

Ghost - I think grim or great depends on what your original view was. My view has always centered around 2500 secular demand. I thought of 2000 realistically and 1600 as most optimistic projection for 2008 onwards demand.

So 2008 lived up to realistic and 2009 has beat the optimistic projection. Which why I called it great news (considering the double benefit of the DD as explained earlier).

However I think we can agree one thing that the good/badness of the news depends on what you originally thought how much the demand was going to be.

Q, i disagree.
For 2008 inventory shows 18,447 for EB2-IC. Add 5000 already given GCs and you get 23,447 i.e. 1954 per month. Expected from PERM filings was 27,657
For 2009 inventory shows 16,342 for EB2-IC which is 1362 per month (as you say) BUT expected from PERM filings was 18,740. No one expected or assumed 2500 per month for 2009.

Where is 50% DD ??. In my opinion the inventory and the visa bulletin confirmed the grim expectations built over last few days and killed any hope for positive news in the short to medium term. EB2-ROW can have cut-off date, EB1 can have cut-off date implying a heavy stress on SOFAD for 2013 and on top of that a 485 inventory which is just 15% less than PERM filings (implying OR of 0.85-0.9) which will only get worse with more porting whenever EB2-I becomes available again. There are 41K I-485s for 2007, 2008 and 2009 which is a heavy inventory.

The only bright side is the confusing statement in the visa bulletin which still promises to bring the dates back to May-2010 as soon as possible and only gives a lower limit of spring 2013 as the estimate for as soon as possible.

[TeddyKoochu]

Q, i disagree.
For 2008 inventory shows 18,447 for EB2-IC. Add 5000 already given GCs and you get 23,447 i.e. 1954 per month. Expected from PERM filings was 27,657
For 2009 inventory shows 16,342 for EB2-IC which is 1362 per month (as you say) BUT expected from PERM filings was 18,740. No one expected or assumed 2500 per month for 2009.

Where is 50% DD ??. In my opinion the inventory and the visa bulletin confirmed the grim expectations built over last few days and killed any hope for positive news in the short to medium term. EB2-ROW can have cut-off date, EB1 can have cut-off date implying a heavy stress on SOFAD for 2013 and on top of that a 485 inventory which is just 15% less than PERM filings (implying OR of 0.85-0.9) which will only get worse with more porting whenever EB2-I becomes available again. There are 41K I-485s for 2007, 2008 and 2009 which is a heavy inventory.

The only bright side is the confusing statement in the visa bulletin which still promises to bring the dates back to May-2010 as soon as possible and only gives a lower limit of spring 2013 as the estimate for as soon as possible.

Q, I would stay away from 2009. Lets look at 2008 however I would tend to agree with Ghostwriter. The 5K figure for 2008 approvals suggested by KD is on the liberal side whereas 8K would probably be more conservative.

While having the entire demand destruction discussion with Suninphx we had agreed on a watered down version of 2500 as 2200 + 300 porting.

So now lets assume 2200 as our baseline. The OR comes to 0.84 if we assume 5K approvals however consider 8K approvals OR becomes 0.95 which is hardly any demand destruction. Based on the first half of 2007 OR has been 1 that is the baseline.

[narendarrao]

Mumbai consulate updated the priority dates.

http://mumbai.usconsulate.gov/cut_off_dates.html

[suninphx]

Q, I would stay away from 2009. Lets look at 2008 however I would tend to agree with Ghostwriter. The 5K figure for 2008 approvals suggested by KD is on the liberal side whereas 8K would probably be more conservative.

While having the entire demand destruction discussion with Suninphx we had agreed on a watered down version of 2500 as 2200 + 300 porting.

So now lets assume 2200 as our baseline. The OR comes to 0.84 if we assume 5K approvals however consider 8K approvals OR becomes 0.95 which is hardly any demand destruction. Based on the first half of 2007 OR has been 1 that is the baseline.

T,

With assumed density of 2500/month our expectation was 30k for 2008 (including porting). If we assume 5k approvals then we have 23.k in inventory. So that's OR of .75 to .8. Isn't that what we were expecting. Am I missing something?

[qesehmk]

Q, I would stay away from 2009.

Not sure Teddy. I think 2009 numbers shouldnt move. I have some pointers to believe what I believe. But not worthwhile sharing at this time. So lets just say its a gut feel.

[abcx13]

Out of curiosity, how much SOFAD has EB2-IC received every year in the last 4-5 years? Anyone know?

[PD2008AUG25]

Out of curiosity, how much SOFAD has EB2-IC received every year in the last 4-5 years? Anyone know?

I am copying this info from some other website, I am not sure how accurate it is.

In FY2005 EB2-IC received 26k visas in total.

In FY2006 EB2-IC received 7k visas in total.

In FY2007 EB2-IC received 13k visas in total.

In FY2008 EB2-IC received 21.8k visas in total.

In FY2009 EB2-IC received 13.1k visas in total.

In FY2010 EB2-IC received 26.5k visas in total.

[EB2-03252009]

My priority date is March 2009, and I haven't applied AP/EAD/I-485 as I am not married yet. Do you guys think I made a mistake? and also will my date be current by Oct 2013? or how early will I be able to apply? Thanks!

[PD2008AUG25]

Does anyone think there could be some people with PD before May 2010 and haven't filed i-485? They won't show up in demand data or inventory. Any guesses on their numbers?

[imdeng]

Spec maintains the SOFAD details here: http://www.qesehmk.org/forums/showth...FY2008-Onwards

You can get this information for going back several years from the USCIS Annual Visa Reports - http://travel.state.gov/visa/statist...tics_1476.html (FY2011 data is not fully uploaded yet).

Out of curiosity, how much SOFAD has EB2-IC received every year in the last 4-5 years? Anyone know?

[imdeng]

There will be some - but considering the excitement, I doubt there will be very many. The new PWMBs. They might have a long wait ahead.

Does anyone think there could be some people with PD before May 2010 and haven't filed i-485? They won't show up in demand data or inventory. Any guesses on their numbers?

[imdeng]

Oct 2013 is a good estimate for Mar 2009 PD - surely by end of FY2014 you should be able to apply (like me). If you are in a steady job with no immediate pressure to change job and no H1B issues then I think you can afford to wait. If you had applied, you could have married before the GC issue and it would have worked fine.

My priority date is March 2009, and I haven't applied AP/EAD/I-485 as I am not married yet. Do you guys think I made a mistake? and also will my date be current by Oct 2013? or how early will I be able to apply? Thanks!

[vizcard]

Let me ask this question -
what are the implications of a COD for Eb1 and Eb2ROW (assuming it happens) to QSP for FY13?

I expect it will all be cleared in Q1. So that would indicate no QSP for Q1 and possibly Q2 as well to account for the regular demand. Extending the logic, this will also force EAD/AP renewals en masse which will further take time away from pre-adjudication of cases.

[Mavrick]

Friends,
Regardless what the bulletin says - and i haven't seen it yet - the inventory actually is a great news. It shows EB2I demand at around 1200 per month and EB2C at 300 per month. I think at that rate, it is absolutely possible to clear 2008 in 2013. And after that my guess is 2009 and 2010 will be cleared by 2014. Just a rough feeling.

For the rest of the year - the dates certainly aren't moving beyond 2007 - if at all - for EB2IC.



I will update this data in the SSFT tool as well to reflect the "demand destruction". And yes - although I was right on my advice to Teddy on demand data, I also admit that demad destruction is real. 2009 data proves that beyond doubt.

Q,

Why will only 2008 get cleared by 2013? As well know there are unknown number of GC's given to 2008 and second half of 2007 filers. Do you think 2007 & 2008 filers will consume all of 2008 numbers?

Also, what makes you think 2009 and 2010 will get cleared in 2014? I agree that there was DD for the year 2009 but I don't see any DD for 2010.

Please advice.