Federal records: US Department of Labor, USCIS
The visa body shops
Some firms hire H-1B workers to do their own work. Others exist to supply those workers to somebody else. The second kind sponsors the visa, bills a client company for the hours, and keeps the difference. The worker’s right to stay runs through the firm.
Nobody has to guess which firms these are. Every H-1B application names the employer’s industry, asks whether the firm is H-1B dependent, and asks whether the worker will sit at another company’s worksite. The firms answer those questions themselves. This page counts their answers.
Loading the federal filings…
What counts as a body shop here
“Body shop” is trade slang, not a legal category. It is used here as a test with four parts, and every part is the employer’s own answer on its own certified application.
Move the thresholds yourself
The four parts above are a judgement, and the 50% cuts are a convention — “more than half” — not something the data proposes. Set them where you think they belong and the count below follows.
Where firms actually sit, in ten-point bands. The marked band holds the cut.
The firms that meet the test
| Loading… |
Same job title, two prices
Four years of filings
Who has actually been barred
What no agency publishes
How concentrated the programme is
What this adds up to
An American graduate is not competing on merit against an equal. They are competing against a cheaper worker who cannot leave.
This is the other end of the pipeline. 1,106 firms filed 252,806 certified applications, 12.2% of every certified H-1B application in these years. Their business is supplying people to other companies, by their own answers on their own forms.
The wage data says what the arrangement is worth. Of 565,966 certified applications priced against the local market, 78.7% were below the median wage for that occupation in that place. A worker whose right to remain is tied to an employer is a worker who does not negotiate, and the discount is the point.
An American graduate competing for these jobs is not competing on merit against an equal. They are competing against a cheaper worker who cannot leave, supplied at volume by firms built for the purpose.
Where to look next
Method and limits
Built by scripts/build_visa_bodyshops.py and
scripts/build_visa_staffing.py. Source files:
DOL
OFLC disclosure data and the
USCIS
H-1B Employer Data Hub.