This is how US staffing firms are gaming half of the H-1B visas issued: What it means for you

When the United States designed the H-1B visa program to attract the world’s best minds, few anticipated that staffing and outsourcing firms would find a lucrative shortcut, using repeat lottery entries to flood the system. Now, data reveals nearly half of all H-1B visas are routed through firms whose business models hinge on sending jobs overseas and squeezing wages, warping what was meant to be a conduit for top-tier global talent, according to Bloomberg.

Sharing the insights on X, Workforce Intelligence Analyst, Amanda Goodall, said, “In all, nearly half the H-1Bs in Bloomberg’s analysis went to outsourcing or staffing companies.” (2024)

"What was supposed to bring in the best talent… turned into a backdoor for offshoring," she added.

Staffing firms worked together to submit candidates’ names more than once, dramatically improving their odds in the increasingly competitive H-1B lottery, according to Bloomberg. Evidence from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services and Bloomberg shows these firms overwhelmingly paid workers less and enabled jobs to be offshored, fundamentally reshaping the landscape for skilled foreign workers.

According to immigration records, outsourcing and staffing companies not only submitted more repeat entries but also offered lower salaries to their candidates compared to other tech and business firms.

Visualisation in the X post of the 2023 data shows staffing firms dominating both the volume of repeat lottery entries and the share of low-wage placements. These outsourcers clustered around high rates of multiple registrations, harvesting visas in ways that undercut salaries and diverted talent pipelines intended for genuine recruitment.

Circle sizes in official charts represent the number of approved H-1B visas, and the overwhelming majority belong to staffing firms with systematic multiple registrations, a move widely seen as abuse of the program’s intent. While "other companies" offered higher median salaries and consciously refrained from submitting candidates multiple times, staffing and outsourcing companies capitalised on loopholes, steering the process away from rewarding skill and toward mass placement.