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In an article penned last year by (present and former) IEEE-USA presidents, we read that (my experpts and emphsis):

In 2014 (the last year we have good data), Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro, and Tata Consultancy used 21,695 visas, or more than 25 percent of all private-sector H-1B visas used that year. Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Uber, for comparison, used only 1,763 visas, or 2 percent.

This is the real story of the H-1B visa. It is a tool used by companies to avoid hiring American workers, and avoid paying American wages. For every visa used by Google to hire a talented non-American for $126,000, ten Americans are replaced by outsourcing companies paying their H-1B workers $65,000.

There is a reason for this. If outsourcing companies pay their H-1B workers at least $60,000, the company is exempted from a number of regulations designed to prevent visa abuse. But $60,000 is far below 2016 market rates for most tech jobs.

This is why, IEEE-USA opposes efforts to expand the H-1B visa program.

Has this analysis been subject to commentary by other authorities (economists, government officials etc.) and is it correct that roughly 90% of the H1B visas are used to pay below-market wages, at least in the IT sector, which is the essence of the above IEEE-USA analysis?

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  • I've worked for a big 4 company in Seattle. Visa workers were paid the same, and it was well over $140K in total compensation for a starting position as a software developer. Far removed from this mythical $65K. – Alexander Jun 10 '18 at 06:51
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    By "big 4 company" you mean Infosys or such---A place where Google would outsource jobs to? The claim seems to be: yes, Google paid 126,000 for their own H1-B workers, but they outsourced far more jobs to Infosys and paid only 65,000 for them. – GEdgar Jun 10 '18 at 11:30
  • There is probably a difference in required quality between the work done by Google employees and the work Google outsources, so one would expect some difference in pay. But probably not a factor of 2. – Peter Shor Jun 13 '18 at 12:19

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