[odux]

I am categorizing them because each have their own background. For the law it is one big bucket.

The theory is that there is enough demand and not enough supply of people to fill this demand. In practice there is a lot of nuance. It is a messy outdated system that is being stretched and abused.

Some of them are: US colleges like foreign students due to the money they bring in. This is not going to stop. H1B employees in the third and fourth categories are paid less compared to the US employees and even compared to the first category. So there is an intrinsic demand. These companies also don’t intend to hire US workers. They “prefer” foreign workers due to a variety of reasons, some in the legal grey area, some not legal. Some are: These employees are there to help run the offshore workforce so they want someone who understands the culture and work with them, even better if this is somewhere who was actually offshore and can come to the US and act as a bridge. They also use this as an incentive for the employees in India and elsewhere. They don’t want to pay more. Like I said some are in the legal grey area and use loopholes. There is a recent lawsuit against TCS related to this. These jobs are not going to stop unless US companies stop outsourcing because these jobs (and they being fulfilled by foreign workers) are fundamental to how the outsourcing model is run by these companies.

My personal opinion is the first and second categories do not suppress jobs and salaries of US workers. These companies pay the same for both and a lot of times actually spend a net higher amount of money on the foreign workers due to the H1B overhead and fees involved (a fee when applying, renewals every 3 years, applying for green card etc). These employees also tend to be good at what they do.

The third is where the vast majority of suppression comes from. And the fourth is where the vast majority of skirting the law happens.