Which U.S. companies are the biggest sponsors of the H-1B visa? Technology and consulting firms topped this list, according to data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) analyzed by the New York Times. 

In addition to that company-by-company breakdown, the Times article offers an interesting analysis of whether the Trump administration’s attempts to restrict the H-1B visa (amid other immigration policies) actually created American jobs. The short answer is “no.” The longer, somewhat more complex answer is that many companies, faced with Trump-era immigration restrictions, decided to offshore at least a portion of their hiring. 

The paper cites research by Britta Glennon, an assistant professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, who estimated that “for every 10 unfilled H-1B positions, an equivalent of three jobs were created overseas.” The remaining work was “spread around” to some combination of existing employees, outsourcing, and a limited amount of hiring American workers.  

Here’s a breakdown of the top sponsors of H-1B visas, based on initial applications in 2020:

Unnamed sources told the Times that workers who weren’t chosen for a visa during the H-1B lottery would have the option of working overseas until the next year’s lottery. The above list of companies shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s followed the twists and turns of the H-1B ecosystem over the past few years. Consulting and business-services companies such as Infosys are famous for submitting as many applications as possible. 

Some of the largest tech companies pay their H-1B workers quite a bit, while consulting and business-services companies (which often subcontract H-1B workers’ services to large companies) tend to offer lower pay. According to the H-1B Salary Database, which indexes the Labor Condition Application (LCA) disclosure data from the United States Department of Labor (DOL), the median salary for a software developer on an H-1B visa currently stands at $93,558.