Information technology (IT) firms that outsource American jobs to foreign workers through the H-1B visa continue to pay below-average wages, new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data show.
Every year, more than 100,000 foreign workers are brought to the U.S. on the H-1B visa. Most recently, that number has ballooned to potentially hundreds of thousands each year, as universities and non-profits are exempt from the cap. With more entering the U.S. through the visa, Americans are often fired and forced to their foreign replacement.
Outsourcing firms like IBM, Cognizant, Infosys and Tata Consulting Services were some of the top importers of foreign guest workers through the H-1B visa, despite thousands of American students graduating in IT every year and Americans looking to fill those coveted tech jobs.
For instance, Cognizant, which is responsible for allegedly displacing close to 200 American workers this year when they contracted with Carnival Corporation, as Breitbart Texas reported, was granted close to 21,500 H-1B foreign workers in 2016.
Despite claims by Silicon Valley and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that the H-1B visa brings in “high-skilled” foreign nationals who are paid above average, Cognizant’s typical compensation for the foreign workers is $84,000 a year, DHS data reveal.
IBM, on average, paid their imported foreign labor even lower, at $79,000 a year, a low-wage when compared to what Americans often are paid in the tech industry.
Tata Consulting Services, which outsourced hundreds of Americans’ jobs in Connecticut within the last three years, paid their H-1B staff $72,000 a year, roughly.
Additionally, the majority of foreign workers imported in 2016 had no more than a bachelor’s degree, debunking the claim that these workers are generally more skilled than locals.
As Breitbart Texas reported, tech conglomerates like Amazon, Microsoft and Apple hide their H-1B foreign worker hires through outsourcing firms like Cognizant, Tata and Infosys. The practice allows the corporations to claim they are not undercutting or replacing American workers at extraordinary rates, as they simply contract the foreign workers through the outsourcing firms.
For instance, Microsoft Corporation’s headquarters, 43 percent of the foreign H-1B workers were applied for through an outsourcing outfit, as well as 29 percent at eBay and 12 percent at Facebook’s respective home bases.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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