The top 30 H-1B visa employers in the US hired 34,000 new workers in 2022, despite laying off around 85,000 employees in 2022 and early 2023, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). 13 of the top 30 H-1B visa employers were found to be outsourcing firms that exploited the program to underpay migrant workers and offshore US jobs to other countries, taking advantage of the visa’s lack of requirement to test if US workers were available or to pay fair wages.
Amid ongoing layoffs, the top 30 H-1B visa employers hired 34,000 new workers in 2022 and laid off at least 85,000 workers in 2022 and early 2023, an Economic Policy Institute (EPI) analysis found.
A lot of tech and outsourcing companies are exploiting the highly-skilled H-1B visa program by hiring individuals who were laid off by bigger giants like Meta, Amazon, Microsoft etc.
13 of the top 30 H-1B visa employers were outsourcing firms that underpay migrant workers and offshore US jobs to countries where labor costs are much lower. “Most employers hire H-1B workers because they can be underpaid and are de facto indentured to the employer,” the EPI research said.
“Its implementation has been bungled by the US Departments of Labor and Homeland Security,” the analysis said, adding that since employers aren’t required to test the US labor market to see if any workers are available before hiring an H-1B worker or pay their H-1B workers a fair wage, employers have exploited the program.
In 2022, 48,000 employers registered with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in hopes of hiring at least one H-1B worker, and nearly 30,000 employers ultimately hired at least one new H-1B worker, the analysis found.
Citing an example, the ECI research said Amazon was at the top of the list in terms of both new H-1B workers and layoffs. It hired 6,400 new H-1B workers in 2022, and 6,200 workers in 2021. The tech giant has either recently laid off or plans to lay off 27,150 of its employees — more than twice the number of H-1B workers it hired in 2021 and 2022 combined.
