H-1B Employer Data Hub (opens in new tab)

Speaking anecdotally (which maybe the dataset backs up?) - yes.

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.

If you look again, you'll see that it's the 2019 file that is much smaller. That is because FY 2019 is far from over. You can see a graph of the approvals for the full years of 2009 through 2018 at http://econdataus.com/h1bhub_status_09_18.png . As you can see, initial and continuing approvals (I.A. and C.A.) are down slightly in 2018 and the denials (I.D. and C.D.) are up slightly. You can generate this graph by going to the application at https://labor.shinyapps.io/h1bhub/ , changing Start Year to 2009, clicking the Submit button, and then clicking the Plot tab. It may take 20 or 30 seconds to generate. This application uses the USCIS data that we are discussing.

I just downloaded them all and 2018 is larger (measuring by bytes or lines) than 2017/2016/2015.

Looks like there was a reduction, although the 2018 data seems like it cuts off funny.

2018 data has 22502 rows; however, 2017 data has 55667 rows.

Haven't checked the data. But lottery is for first 3 years. After that company can keep applying for extensions. For FAANG companies extension approval rate can be higher as you have already noticed.

I am even more confused. Can we infer from any of these numbers what is the ratio for a company between original applicants, and post review, post lottery H1B approval?

That’s really funny. Makes sense.

I can't speak for every role, but I've worked with a lot of H1B holders in not-entry-but-not-senior positions (think $300K+ but not $500K+).

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).

FB and Google are well known for paying near or at top of market salaries for developers and PMs. Netflix is even more explicit about this - their compensation philosophy (available on their website) can be summarized as "We will not be outbid." (from personal experience I know they really mean it)

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.

This form of reasoning is very common but very confused IMO. Logically thinking, everyone would want to keep more money. I don't know why a rational thinking entity would try to make decisions that would increase costs. Everyone optimizes. Optimization is the basis of any free economy.

If it were a money game they wouldn't be hiring a bunch of people in the most expensive part of the world to pay them huge salaries, they would just base everything in other countries.

Maybe it's just that they want to recruit good people and some good people just happen to live outside the US?

Does this wage include 401K?

I understand where you come from, but that's one harsh sentiment right there.

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.