My answer for the industry and not cherry pick companies as example.

Yes, without a doubt.

It’s not a free market when non-resident workers are indentured to a specific employer. Since they can’t easily job-shop, they are necessarily going to make a lower wage than if they had the ability to switch jobs. It isn’t the free market of the free movement of labor is artificially constrained by visa rules. Let’s not confuse this with the free market. It isn’t.

It's harder for them to switch jobs, and depending on where they are in the process of applying for a green card, they may have to restart if they do switch.

That kind of "loyalty" is easily worth 20k-30k for a lot of companies.

But they can always go home, there is nothing to stop that. So I would argue the loyalty they buy isn’t worth much.

And take a massive pay cut? Even among rich countries and even for underpaid H-1B workers, tech salaries are generally much higher in the US, and most of them don't come from rich countries.

Clearly you can see there is a difference between what a company needs to do to keep an H-1B employee from leaving the country, and what they need to do to keep a permanent resident employee from switching jobs?

Sure, but I’m not sure I buy that companies hire H1-B’s because they are more loyal.

They spend far more money and time upfront getting the person the visa and in the end there is nothing preventing them from either going home or tranfering to a similar role at another company.

>They spend far more money and time upfront getting the person the visa and in the end there is nothing preventing them from either going home or tranfering to a similar role at another company.

So if there was a law that said they can't go home or change jobs, then you would accept that it might be worth it?

But if that were the case there's still nothing preventing them from dying right?

Hopefully from this example you can see that an employee who is much more likely to stay for x years, is more valuable despite the fact that they aren't guaranteed to stay for x years.

If you could pay $30k extra for an employee that is 50% more likely to stick around for 5 years, most companies would jump at that chance.

> The legal costs of hiring and maintaining them easily adds up to 20-30k $ per year.

Per year? No it doesn't. An H1B is valid for three years, renewable to six. Unless you're doing something strange there is no cost for the other years.

And when those people are 100% remote, don't add up to 20-30k per head, and are paid 1/10 the cost of a US citizen?

That’s not how it works. DOL sets a floor to salaries based on the US prevailing wage. If any H1-B holder is paying 1/10th of what a US worker costs, they are breaking the law.

Oh yeah I realize that - just going on the extended not just Cisco, and not just H1-B - there are companies right now in the US that are hiring outside firms or buying such firms employing 20-40 pakistani "employees" for software development. The money is basically just funnelling outside the US at incredible speeds. That software is then sold to US companies at 10 times the price.