It’s a sign of the hard economic times that applications for those once-prized H-1B visas have dwindled along with IT job opportunities in the United States.

For evidence, take a look at the number of visa petitions the feds had received at this time last year and then check out the number they’ve gotten to date. The number this year is down by a third.

Despite this lower demand for overseas workers, foreign students are still looking to stay in America — many suppose because they already have jobs and want to be able to keep them.

The U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) started accepting H-1B visa applications on April 1. Last year at this time, it had gotten 163,000 for the 85,000 available visas.  (That included 65,000 visas for foreign workers with at least a bachelor’s degree and 20,000 for graduates of U.S. universities with advanced degrees.)

A USCIS spokesman said that based on preliminary numbers, this year the agency has “about half the petitions” it needs to meet the 2010 fiscal year cap of 65,000, but it is “just short of the 20,000 advanced degree cap.”

Looks like U.S. employers don’t have the jobs to offer domestic workers, much less those from other countries. It’s too soon to know how the economic stimulus money will affect IT hiring for the rest of the year, but if government IT projects begin soon, the USCIS could be seeing greater demand for additional IT talent from abroad.

Tags: applications, H-1B visa, U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, USCIS