Investigating Random Selection Processes for High-Skilled Foreign Worker Immigration Programs
Check out this eye-opening visualization from Bloomberg, shedding light on the types of companies snatching up work visas for foreign talents between 2020 and 2023, based on recent immigration data obtained through a lawsuit with the U.S. government.
Each year, a whopping 85,000 H-1B visas are up for grabs for high-skilled foreigners to work in the U.S., with a lottery system determining who gets to join the competition. With thousands of companies vying for these limited spots, let's take a peek at who's winning the visa race?
It turns out, roughly half of all those visas go to two categories of companies:
- A small cluster of multinational outsourcing companies, identified by round yellow circles on the visualization, and
- IT staffing firms, represented by bright red circles.
These IT staffing firms differ from traditional employers in that they serve as intermediaries between the job market and potential employees rather than being end employers themselves (indicated by grey circles).
While the data doesn't provide exact percentages for H-1B visas granted to multinational outsourcing and IT staffing firms versus other company types, we can infer some patterns from previous years:
- Companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro, and others often account for a substantial share—ranging from 25% to 40%—of the total H-1B visas issued annually, historically.
- U.S.-based technology giants, such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, secure a significant portion of the remaining visas.
- Universities, research organizations, and non-profit entities see a much smaller share of visa approvals.
- Other industries like healthcare and finance also seek H-1B visas but at a significantly lower rate compared to tech and IT staffing.
In summary, this visualization indicates that between 2020 and 2023, multinational IT outsourcing and staffing firms are likely to have claimed a sizable chunk—approximately one-third—of all H-1B visas each year. This is significantly more than most other individual company types but less than the combined totals of all other businesses and organizations. American tech titans are their main competitors in terms of visa numbers.
For the precise numbers, you should refer to the USCIS’s H-1B Employer Data Hub or similar official datasets.
AI can analyze this data to understand the trends in H-1B visa distribution among companies. For instance, it reveals that IT staffing firms and multinational outsourcing companies collectively account for approximately one-third of all H-1B visas each year, with tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon following closely. This shows a clear technology focus in the visa race, with limited visas being sought by industries such as healthcare and finance at a significantly lower rate.
