An Independent Investigation

The talent shortage
is a myth.

This is labor arbitrage.

The federal dataset loaded for this investigation contains 9,472,472 Labor Condition Applications for foreign workers. The company pages below isolate the employers whose public records best expose the playbook: file at scale, pay the legal minimum, and lock workers in with green card sponsorship.

Total LCA Filings9,472,472
|
Approval Rate97-99%
|
Green Card Sponsors686,519
|
Amazon PERM Filings25,462
|
Commodity IT Roles65%+
|
Companies Tracked37
|
Years of DataFY2020-2026
|
Total LCA Filings9,472,472
|
Approval Rate97-99%
|
Green Card Sponsors686,519
|
Amazon PERM Filings25,462
|
Commodity IT Roles65%+
|
Companies Tracked37
|
Years of DataFY2020-2026
|

The Numbers

What the public records show.

Every data point here comes from public federal filings - the paper trail employers created themselves.

9,472,472
Total LCA Filings
All DOL OFLC LCA disclosure rows loaded for this investigation
686,519
Green Card Sponsorships
All DOL OFLC PERM disclosure rows loaded for this investigation
65%+
Commodity IT Work
Software devs, analysts, QA - not specialized talent
97-99%
USCIS Approval Rate
Rubber stamp. Virtually zero oversight.
25,462
Amazon PERM Filings
Green card apps from one company alone - nearly 4x the next biggest sponsor
23,619
Amazon Peak H-1B Approvals
FY2022 - more than every bank in this dataset combined

The Playbook

The talent shortage is a myth.
This is labor arbitrage.

01

File at Scale

Thousands of Labor Condition Applications filed per year. Volume is the strategy.

02

Pay the Floor

Nearly a third of filings cluster right at the prevailing wage minimum. Compliance minimums, not competitive offers.

03

Route to Low-Cost Cities

Workers sent to locations where prevailing wage obligations are lowest. Geographic arbitrage baked into the system.

04

Lock Them In

Sponsor green cards. The worker can't leave, can't negotiate, can't push back. Their immigration status is the leash.

The Companies

Thirty-seven companies. More than a million filings.

Search the selected high-volume company profiles and open any page for the full breakdown.

37 / 37 companies
Profile
01AmazonAMZN

The largest e-commerce and cloud computing company in the world - and the single biggest H-1B sponsor in the United States.

94,791
$155,886
98.6%
02InfosysINFY

A global IT services and consulting company with a large U.S. H-1B filing footprint.

37,520
$99,645
-
03MicrosoftMSFT

The world's second-largest company by market cap and the #2 H-1B sponsor in America - filing thousands of visa applications while laying off thousands of workers.

36,429
$171,891
98.3%
04CognizantCTSH

A global IT services and consulting firm with heavy H-1B usage and documented discrimination litigation context.

34,982
$111,630
-

A global IT services and consulting firm and one of the largest H-1B sponsors in the dataset.

34,279
$90,192
-

The world's largest social media company - and one of only a handful of H-1B Dependent employers in Big Tech.

29,915
$205,348
99.1%
07GoogleGOOGL

Alphabet's search, advertising, cloud, and AI core, with affiliated filings from Google, Waymo, YouTube, Verily, DeepMind, Wing, and other Alphabet entities.

24,104
$185,772
98.7%
08DeloittePRIVATE

A Big Four consulting and audit firm whose U.S. consulting, audit, tax, and advisory entities combine into a very large visa profile.

22,167
$130,320
97.9%
09AppleAAPL

The iPhone, Mac, services, silicon, and retail giant, with a high-volume technical H-1B profile centered on Apple employer entities.

15,509
$175,341
98.7%

The largest U.S. bank by assets and one of the biggest H-1B sponsors in financial services.

14,513
$162,581
99.5%
11HCL AmericaHCLTECH

The U.S. arm of HCLTech and a major IT services H-1B sponsor.

13,672
$112,180
-

A global IT services and consulting company with a substantial U.S. LCA footprint under Capgemini employer names.

13,066
$131,087
98.3%
13WiproWIT

A global IT services company with sustained H-1B filings for consulting and technical delivery roles.

12,069
$96,786
-
14IBMIBM

A legacy technology and consulting company whose profile includes IBM, International Business Machines, and Red Hat employer rows.

11,235
$130,910
98%

A global consulting and outsourcing firm with a large U.S. H-1B footprint across Accenture employer entities.

10,844
$134,790
98.3%
16IntelINTC

A major U.S. semiconductor manufacturer with high-volume technical filings during a period of restructuring and cost cuts.

10,333
$130,676
94.4%
17Ernst & YoungPRIVATE

A Big Four audit and consulting partnership with one of the largest H-1B filing footprints in the public records.

9,980
$151,183
97.3%
18OracleORCL

A database, cloud, enterprise software, and health-tech company whose profile includes Oracle, NetSuite, and Cerner employer rows.

9,380
$147,922
99%
19WalmartWMT

The world’s largest retailer, with a large technology organization and substantial H-1B filings.

8,136
$145,052
-
20CiscoCSCO

A networking and enterprise technology company with sustained H-1B filings for engineering, cloud, security, and software roles.

7,225
$147,638
97.8%

A cloud software company whose profile includes Salesforce plus acquired platform entities such as Slack, Tableau, and MuleSoft.

7,048
$203,914
98.2%
22PwCPRIVATE

A Big Four audit, tax, and advisory firm whose filings include PricewaterhouseCoopers and PwC employer variants.

6,860
$175,127
99.3%
23QualcommQCOM

A wireless, modem, and semiconductor company whose H-1B filings concentrate in high-value engineering roles.

5,756
$142,309
96%
24PayPalPYPL

A payments giant planning major cost cuts while ranking as a top-50 H-1B sponsor with software-heavy filings.

4,951
$175,837
98.6%

Citigroup’s banking entity in the dataset, with H-1B filings concentrated in software and quantitative roles.

4,705
$161,673
-

A major bank holding company specializing in credit cards, auto loans, and banking, with a large tech workforce.

4,579
$145,402
99.9%

A Wall Street investment bank whose filings cluster in software, quant, finance, and platform roles.

4,479
$132,699
98.3%
28TeslaTSLA

An electric vehicle, energy, robotics, and AI company with rapidly growing H-1B filings.

3,780
$153,452
-
29NVIDIANVDA

A leading AI and accelerated-computing chip company with high-salary H-1B technical roles.

3,657
$186,719
-

A global financial services corporation known for credit cards and payment processing.

3,443
$150,670
99.1%

A legacy automaker whose direct H-1B filings cluster around Michigan engineering, software, and vehicle validation roles.

3,368
$142,067
98.3%
32VisaV

A payments network and fintech infrastructure company with a concentrated high-wage technical visa profile.

3,139
$144,871
99.2%
33UberUBER

A ride-hailing, delivery, logistics, and marketplace technology company with software-heavy H-1B filings.

2,805
$190,861
97.8%

A major U.S. bank whose H-1B filings include Bank of America and Merrill Lynch employer rows.

2,622
$157,442
99.1%
35AdobeADBE

A creative, document, marketing, and AI software company with high-wage technical H-1B filings.

2,188
$186,310
93.6%

A legacy automaker whose H-1B filings concentrate around software, product engineering, mobility, and vehicle technology roles.

2,112
$132,763
98.9%
37ByteDancePRIVATE

The parent company of TikTok, with a fast-growing U.S. visa profile across ByteDance and TikTok employer names.

1,980
$209,219
99.6%

Methodology

All sourced. All public.

This entire investigation runs on public federal data - filings these companies submitted to the Department of Labor, USCIS, the SEC, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

They created the paper trail. We read it.

DOL
Dept. of Labor OFLC
Every LCA filing, prevailing wage determination, and worksite location.
USCIS
USCIS Employer Data Hub
H-1B petition approvals, denials, and outcomes by employer and fiscal year.
SEC
SEC 10-K Filings
Annual workforce headcounts - the denominator for calculating H-1B penetration.
BLS
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational wage data to benchmark what the market actually pays.

Note: LCA filings are not the same as H-1B petitions. One worker can have multiple LCAs across different years or locations. The data shows filing volume and patterns - which is exactly the point. The pattern is the story.

Stay Informed

This is just
the beginning.

New research published weekly. More companies, more industries, more data to go through.