Cognizant
CTSHFY2020-FY2025 Filing and Wage Profile
Cognizant remained a large U.S. visa sponsor across FY2020-FY2025 with 91,987 certified LCA filings in this dataset. Annual volume declined from 29,357 in FY2020 to 11,193 in FY2025, a 61.9% drop, with a temporary rebound in FY2023.
Wages moved in the opposite direction. Average H-1B salary rose from $88,931 in FY2020 to $111,632 in FY2025, up 25.5%. In FY2025, Cognizant's average H-1B salary was $18,528 below the BLS software developer median and $2,277 above its own reported prevailing wage level.
* FY2026 is partial, through Mar 31, 2026.
5 total denials across all years (0.0% of filings) - too small to display on this chart.
Landmark Litigation Context
In Vartan Piroumian et al. v. Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., filed in 2017 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, a jury found in October 2024 that Cognizant engaged in intentional pattern-or-practice discrimination against non-Indian workers and authorized punitive damages.
The case record reports that non-South Asian workers were six times more likely to be terminated from the bench, non-South Asian and non-Indian workers were 8.4 times more likely to be terminated from the bench overall, and non-visa workers had a 30% bench termination rate versus 3% for visa holders, who were 99% Indian-origin.
Project sources also state a December 2024 Phase II ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee finding disparate impact from "Visa Readiness," "Visa Utilization," and related staffing practices during 2016-2022.
This litigation period overlaps with the highest filing years in this dataset. Cognizant logged 29,357 LCA filings in FY2020, 12,789 in FY2021, and 14,015 in FY2022, which is a large operational footprint for any staffing practice finding.
* FY2026 is partial, through Mar 31, 2026.
This site no longer charts H-1B filings as a share of workforce. The ratio can blur U.S. employees, global employees, contractors, and offshore delivery headcount into one denominator.
Rows with a disclosed U.S.-employee denominator available here: 0. The analysis now uses filings, approvals, wage, worksite, and title concentration instead.
Data Coverage and Remaining Limits
This page now includes normalized FY2020-FY2025 LCA volume, FY2020-FY2025 salary trends, USCIS approvals, and a populated top job-title distribution for Cognizant.
One limitation still matters for interpretation. Workforce share is not computed because the dataset has no populated U.S. employee base for Cognizant. The top-occupation chart now uses normalized expansion aggregate rows for this company.
| # | Job Title | Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manager Jc50 | 22,775 |
| 2 | Senior Systems Analyst Jc60 | 19,810 |
| 3 | Manager Jc50 - Computer Systems Engineers/architects | 11,592 |
| 4 | Senior Associate Jc60 -Computer Systems Engineers/architects | 6,688 |
| 5 | Senior Manager Jc45 | 4,518 |
| 6 | System Analyst Jc65 | 4,451 |
| 7 | Senior Manager Jc45 - Computer Systems Engineers/architects | 3,378 |
| 8 | Sa Jc60 - Software Quality Assurance Analysts And Testers | 2,157 |
Get the Full Picture
Deep dives on H-1B data, wage pressure, and labor-market policy tradeoffs. Independent analysis with primary-source links and reproducible methodology.
Data Sources
- DOL OFLC LCA disclosure data for Cognizant filing, wage, occupation, and job-title records
- USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub for approval and denial history, including FY2025 ranking context
- Public litigation records and reporting for the Cognizant discrimination case context
- BLS wage benchmark: Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2023