The H-1B programme brings in about 85,000 skilled foreign workers every year, ostensibly to fill jobs that US workers cannot or will not do. But some companies in the science and technology fields, afraid of a backlash over hiring foreign professionals rather than American ones, are rescinding job offers. Analysts say it is part of a wave of mounting anger in the United States over work visas, especially at a time when more than half a million Americans are being laid off every month.

“Hiring H-1B visa holders has become as toxic as giving out corporate bonuses,” said Vivek Wadhwa, a Duke University professor and Harvard University research fellow.

The United States is not the only nation making it more difficult for foreigners to get work. Persian Gulf countries have reduced the number of work visas they offer, forcing unemployed Indians to return home. Britain has begun to review its immigration policies to determine whether there should be more restrictions on the types of workers who can obtain visas.

“This is part of the broader story of the unwinding of globalisation in the current economic crisis. As goods have moved more freely around the world, so did people, but now that’s ending,” said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations and author of the book “The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration and Security Since 9/11.”

The stimulus bill contained the Employ American Workers Act, which was sponsored by Senators Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.). They say that they are worried that laid-off Americans struggling to find work are being displaced by foreign junior investment analysts, computer programmers and corporate lawyers who accept a fraction of the pay commanded by Americans.

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