Notice period relevance for H-1B employees

USA H1B Visa
1

Hello,

I’m currently on H-1B with a company. I’m looking for a change but have questions regarding my contract with my current company.

My currently company requires me to give a month’s notice after I resign. If I’m not able to serve the full one month’s notice, I would have to reimburse the cost incurred by the company for my Visa and other activities. But they have not mentioned any specific amount. I was looking at the Dept. of Labor website and this is what it says about this specific scenario:

“…Also, the employer may not require the worker to pay a penalty for leaving employment prior to any agreed date. However, this restriction does not preclude the employer from seeking “liquidated damages” pursuant to relevant state law. Liquidated damages are generally estimates stated in a contract of the anticipated damages to the employer caused by the worker’s breach of contract.”

Link: http://www.dol.gov/compliance/guide/h1b.htm

The question is relating to “Liquidated damages”. If this amount is not mentioned in the contract, would the employer be allowed to deduce this amount based on their calculations at any given point?

Thank you, experts.

2

The employer can’t ask you to pay any amount while you are here and resign. Only if you go back to India, the employer can do something.

The process to follow is: you get hired by your new employer, get the H1B transfer inititated, you’ll receive an acknowledgement of initiation of H1B transfer. After you get the ack, you can resign, and you can give notice of 2 weeks.