On June 11, 2012, USCIS received a sufficient number of petitions to reach the statutory H-1B cap for FY 2013. On June 7, 2012, it received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions on behalf of persons exempt from the cap under the advanced degree exemption. USCIS will now reject petitions subject to the cap for H-1B specialty occupation workers seeking an employment start date in FY 2013. Employers wishing to hire first-time, cap subject H-1B workers will have to wait until April 1, 2013 to file their cases for work that will begin no earlier than October 1, 2013, the first day of FY 2014. USCIS continues to accept petitions exempted from the cap and DOD cooperative research worker H-1B petitions as well as Chile/Singapore H-1B1 petitions requesting an employment start date in FY 2013.