A high salary does not prove that a worker has bargaining power, and a lower salary does not prove that his passport caused the difference; both truths complicate the shouting match over H-1B employment. The serious allegation is that corporations can use immigration dependence, selective recruitment and cost differences to shape the labour market in their favour, while workers of different origins are encouraged to blame each other for decisions made above them.
“We believe in the strength and talent of the American workforce. That is why the vast majority of Microsoft employees in the United States are Americans. We look forward to providing the Administration with additional information. For example, of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa applications we submitted in the last fiscal year, 80% percent were to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees. These were not to hire new people. The remaining filings for new employees were for individuals already legally in the United States who decided to come work for us, and they equal only 1% of our U.S. workforce. They are not new arrivals to our country. Microsoft only files H-1B petitions for those who meet the rigorous standards of this visa category. We pay our employees some of the highest compensation in the tech sector, and our wages are among the highest of all H-1B filings. We pay our H-1B employees the same as any other employees doing comparable work. Microsoft succeeds as a global technology leader by developing the world’s best technology workforce. We do this by strengthening this country’s talent pipeline, hiring American workers, and attracting the best talent from around the world.” — Microsoft
Vance’s supplied remarks allege $20,000 and $48,000 annual gaps, depending on the hiring channel. Those numbers must retain their attribution. To establish comparable work, an analysis needs occupation, experience, seniority, location, hours, compensation structure and timing. A base salary cannot fairly be compared with total compensation including bonuses and stock, and an employer’s application wage may not measure the same thing as a survey’s median pay.
The circulated occupational comparison is useful precisely because it is not uniform. It reports software-engineer pay of $129,802 against a $161,826 median comparator, but data-scientist pay of $120,429 against $108,020. It also shows higher H-1B figures for hardware engineers and project managers. These are the graphic’s reported inputs, not an independent matched-worker study. Its complete values are retained in the data register so the inconvenient positive gaps do not vanish from the argument.
| Necessary comparison | What it prevents |
|---|---|
| Same occupation and skill level | Junior staff being compared with senior staff |
| Same labour market and period | Location and inflation differences masquerading as nationality effects |
| Same compensation definition | Base wage being compared with salary, equity and bonuses combined |
| Payroll rather than duplicated paperwork | Applications being mistaken for unique employees |
| Recruitment and vacancy records | An aggregate wage gap being mistaken for proof of a particular unlawful replacement |
The mechanism worth investigating is leverage. If changing employers is administratively difficult or a worker believes leaving will jeopardise a residency case, the employer may gain negotiating power even where the nominal wage looks attractive. Conversely, lawful job transfers complicate claims that every visa holder is literally bound to one employer. David Bier’s supplied counterclaim about more than 1.1 million job switches since 2005 should be treated as an attributed argument, not silently substituted for an independently checked series.
