A close look at H1BPays.com’s data shows that, as you move past the Googles and Microsofts of the IT world, H-1B salaries tend to cluster around the $65,000 to $75,000 level. There is a reason for this. If outsourcing companies pay their H-1B workers at least $60,000, the company is exempted from a number of regulations designed to prevent visa abuse.
In 2014 (the last year we have good data), Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro, and Tata Consultancy used 21,695 visas, or more than 25 percent of all private-sector H-1B visas used that year. Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Uber, for comparison, used only 1,763 visas, or 2 percent.
This is the real story of the H-1B visa. It is a tool used by companies to avoid hiring American workers, and avoid paying American wages. For every visa used by Google to hire a talented non-American for $126,000, ten Americans are replaced by outsourcing companies paying their H-1B workers $65,000.
Link to full article:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-careers/commentary-the-h1b-problem-as-ieeeusa-sees-it
From a personal observation, I get dozens of emails a week from job shops advertising 6mo contract jobs at QCT and other tech companies listing minimum qualifications matching the typical outsourcing company engineer profile. They are typically offering no more than $50/hr, no benefits, and job duties identical to many full time employees who have been laid off. A truly sad race to the bottom for what was once a creative and exciting profession with plentiful opportunity.