The source of the information used in the graph above is USCIS (one link per year). I’ve posted on the subject of H-1B visas in the past. I don’t think much of the president imposing a $100K per visa fee on new H-1B visas. I do think that the Congress should act to impose such a fee and should consider making it apply to existing H-1B visas.
As the graph above illustrates this is about information technology. Particularly in information technology the evidence that the U. S. actually needs to import more workers isn’t particularly strong. Wages have been flat in the sector for more than a decade—you’d expect them to be rising if there were such a demand.
Furthermore, there are numerous anecdotes of U. S. IT workers being required to train their own replacements. If I’m not mistaken, a regular commenter here suffered just that fate.
That doesn’t even address the very high unemployment rate among U. S. IT workers at present, the many IT workers presently doing something else, or underemployment among IT workers.
The purpose of the H-1B program is to allow companies to get the workers they need not to boost their stock prices by pushing wages down. I’m open to alternatives other than imposing a $100K fee on H-1B visas but we need to do something about what’s actually happening. Then we should turn our attention to offshore outsourcing.
It may be true for IT but I could not have hired enough staff absent H1B workers.
Steve