At least 95 percent of foreign workers hired by the eight biggest users of high-tech visas were from India, according to a new analysis of 2015 statistics.
About 50,000 of the total 85,000 imported workers were hired through the eight companies, and the large majority of them were male Indian college graduates, largely from south and west India, according to Information Week’s study.
“By hiring 98-99 percent Indians, the outsourcing firms are not only discriminating against U.S. workers, they are also discriminating against those from the rest of the world,” David North, fellow for the Center of Immigration Studies, wrote Tuesday.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data showed Cognizant Tech Solutions, the largest H-1B contractor, won 15,680 visas, 99.6 percent of which were distributed to Indians.
Infosys, the runner-up, distributed 98.1 percent of its 8,991 visas to Indian workers. Tata Consultancy Services shelled out 99.7 percent of its 6,339 awarded visas to recipients from the country.
North speculated the companies are motivated by profit.
“Academic experts on the H-1B program – that is those not directly funded by industry – are convinced that the employers of H-1Bs favor them because they are $10,000 to $20,000 a year cheaper than comparable resident workers; that the system, in fact, indentures them to their employers, and that they are a pliable, non-mobile work force that would not think of joining a union,” North said.
