H1B visas in aggregate represent 0.3% of the labor pool and are almost
exclusively high paying, high skilled jobs. Do they on the margins have a small impact on high skilled wages... perhaps.
But this notion that H1B visas are being used to replace workers with low cost foreign born workers is nonsense. I've sponsored several H1B visas during my career, and they were all for HQ rotational assignments for high potential foreign employees (one was from Switzerland, one from Singapore, one from Hong Kong) and they were all highly paid (>$100K), and as part of the application process we had to demonstrate that their compensation was in line with compensation for comparable roles. In one case, we had to increase the pay fairly substantially to get the Visa approved. No one lost their job as a result of the H1B visas and these were definitely not low cost roles (they cost more for us by the time you figured in the moving costs, home visits, etc).
The image below shows the average salary of H1B visa holders with top companies. Many are well into 6 figures and the average is well north of $80K.
|
(
In response to this post by Hoodafan)
Posted: 02/19/2020 at 10:29AM