Immigration bureaucracy has slowed to a crawl, processes that used to take 6 weeks are now taking 6 months. It's unfortunate, since the news only talks about the administration's policies on undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers, not how the administration is dragging their feet on _all_ immigration processes.
It's just not worth it to sponsor an H-1B, especially if you're a medium/small sized company. Costs too much time and money.
Of the top 20 employers, the average approval rate was 76%. Most of the employers are outsourcing subcontractors or accounting firms. But there were five employers in the top 20 with 90%+ approval rates: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple.
I can't think of a single case where there would be an "obvious" replacement for that person -- not just in the US, but anywhere in the world. In fact, most of those H1Bs I've worked with eventually end up switching to the O1 anyways (for reference, very few SWEs -- even at FAANGs -- would quality for the O1).
These companies sponsor H1B visas because some of the people they wish to hire happen to not able to work in the US without a visa. They'll hire anyone who passes the interview.
Maybe it's just that they want to recruit good people and some good people just happen to live outside the US?
There is a total of 85,000 new H-1B visa numbers released each US Fiscal Year, with the FY2020 beginning as of October 1, 2019.
Out of 85,000 new H-1B visa numbers, 20,000 are set aside for individuals that graduated with a Masters or equivalent (or higher) degree here in the U.S., provided the university wasn’t a for-profit entity.
There is high demand for new numbers and USCIS typically receives 190K+ cases the first week of the season (ie: April 1, 2019). Thus, each year USCIS conducts a lottery to decide which of the cases will be processed .
The H-1B Cap lottery first step is to decide which cases will be selected for the regular 65,000 numbers - then the lottery for the 20,000 US Advanced Degree H-1B cap being conducted after.
There is a place for an H1B program. The effectively indentured servitude program as it exists today has no place in America.
The companies are exploiting loopholes in a system to maximize profits. It is probably one of the softer evil things that companies do.
If anything it is the US govts fault that their lack of regulation has let these bad actors free. You can't ezpect profit seeking companies to not act in their interests. But you should expect your govt. to reign them in when they go out of line.