Despite the jobless epidemic, U.S. companies are tripping over themselves to fill high paying job openings with workers from overseas. Companies, lead by Microsoft and IBM, have already maxed out their allotment of 65,000 H-1B visas.

Indeed, it appears U.S. companies have set a three-year record in how quickly they reached the cap for H-1B workers.The applications process for 2012 opened on April 1 and on November 23, the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services department announced that the cap had been reached.

But there are more than 65,000 jobs at stake. The USCIS also received "more than 20,000 H-1B petitions filed on behalf of persons exempt from the cap under the ‘advanced degree’ exemption," it said. In addition, petitions for workers who already have their visas are not counted toward the cap.

The H-1B visa is a temporary work visa for those classified as "skilled workers" such as engineers, doctors and scientists, and the pay is good. For instance, the average salary for a worker that lands a job at Google is $103,129, at Oracle it is $104,080 and at Microsoft it is $96,497, according to MyVisaJobs.com, a firm that helps prospective employees apply for such positions.

This visa program was established to let employers hire the best and brightest from a global workforce. But some U.S. workers have complained that the program allows companies to ignore U.S. workers and import employees willing to work for lower wages.

Critics of the program have also complained that H-1B workers have diminished rights and protections, too. They have charged that such workers cannot leave their employers, for instance. Workers must petition the USCIS to extend their visa, change employers, accept a second back-to-back H-1B position and so on.

As with previous years, Microsoft imports the most overseas talent, followed by IBM and Indian outsourcer Infosys Systems. The top 25 users of H1-B visas come largely from the high tech sector.

Rank H1B Visa Sponsor H1B Visa Petitions 1 Microsoft 2505 2 IBM 1263 3 Infosys Technologies 1058 4 Deloitte Consulting 887 5 Fujitsu Laboratories OF America 747 6 Cognizant Technology Solutions 645 7 Patni Americas 540 8 CVS Pharmacy 499 9 Qualcomm 472 10 Larsen Toubro Infotech 418 11 Intel 404 12 Wipro 403 13 Goldman Sachs 387 14 Oracle 376 15 Barclays Capital 366 16 Google 355 17 Hewlett Packard 340 18 National Institutes Of Health, Hhs 338 19 UST Global 317 20 Tata Consultancy Services 311

Source: MyVisaJobs.com