The number of petitions for H-1B visas edged up 1.3% this year to 236,000, again exceeding the annual cap on available visas within the first week petitions were accepted, according to numbers released by US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Last year the number of petitions rose 35% to nearly 233,000 petitions.

Employers use H-1B visas to bring in highly skilled foreign temporary workers such as IT specialists. The US caps the number of available H-1B visas at 65,000 per year plus another 20,000 for workers with advanced degrees. Because the cap was reached within the first week this year, the USCIS stopped accepting petitions and used a lottery to determine who would receive an H-1B.

On April 9, USCIS used a computer-generated random selection process, or lottery, to select enough petitions to meet caps. USCIS has used the lottery in past years as well when the cap was exceeded within a week.