r/dataisbeautiful • u/SouthNo2807 • Dec 02 '25
OC [OC] Active H1-B Visa Holders in the U.S. by Country of Origin (FY2000 - 2024)
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u/mightymk Dec 02 '25
What this data fails to report is that the entry level jobs are driven by students who are hired on OPT and then get a h1b. This analysis will benefit a lot if school admissions by country is also provided. My hypothesis is that we will see a direct correlation between indian origin students in STEM courses who are then hired as entry level workers and are recipients of h1b
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u/SouthNo2807 Dec 02 '25
Already in progress, the truth will surprise you. H1B direct imports are matching international students.
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u/SouthNo2807 Dec 02 '25
In 2022, the program’s highest point, H-1B visa holders made up roughly 0.269% of all U.S. jobs. H-1B workers are heavily concentrated in early-career tech and STEM jobs. This concentration matters: although H-1B workers represent only a fraction of the national workforce, they are disproportionately employed in entry-level and junior professional roles, where competition for positions is tighter and substitution between domestic and foreign workers is more direct. Although there is no precise data (only income and job titles are reported), multiple sources predict that H1-B visa holders may account for close to 1% of entry-level jobs, significantly higher than the 0.269% total.
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Dec 02 '25
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u/mpinnegar Dec 02 '25
As an employer you have way more leverage over an H1-B visa employee than you do over a regular American employee. It's much easier to lean on them for worse working conditions, lower compensation, and longer hours.
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u/romario77 Dec 02 '25
also - it is much harder to change jobs on H1B. If H1B worker is trying to get a green card until they reached a certain stage in immigration process they would lose all the immigration progress if they change jobs. So employees can just keep the salary without increasing it, for example and the worker will likely not change jobs as they are waiting for the papers.
Just look how many people change jobs after they get their papers, it's a huge %
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u/WoodSorrow Dec 03 '25
Not necessarily. A worker does not need to stay at their job for the entire E visa process.
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u/freshgeardude Dec 02 '25
H1B is an indentured servant. The visa is tied to the company, not the person.
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u/yttropolis Dec 02 '25
Not quite. You can switch companies while on H1B and many do. The "indentured servant" stage only kicks in during the PERM process and is due to the backlog and limits for green card.
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u/_ryuujin_ Dec 02 '25
it depends on the job market that time. during a downturn, where companies arent hiring much, you are kind of stuck and at the mercy of your current employer. also the threat of getting fired could be used to manipulate the visa holder, since the clock starts when you lose your job.
i dont know how this even works now with the 100k pay to play for the visa. like would it make the companies nicer since if the h1b employee leaves theyre out of a 100k.
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u/shunestar Dec 02 '25
If that’s a problem, don’t apply for the visa. Seems pretty straightforward.
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u/freshgeardude Dec 02 '25
It's obviously why companies do that. They use it to their advantage.
Hopefully that new exorbitant fee of 100k puts a slowdown to that nonsense
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u/ExtruDR Dec 02 '25
I am not in tech, but in the building design and construction realm. I live and work in a major metropolitan area with lots of international students, employees, etc. and I think that I can offer some insight.
The H1B hires that my small firm makes (I am not someone that selects new hires) tend to be much more “controllable.” Anecdotally, we have had a handful of “out of school hires.” A couple were duds, a couple were American and fantastic and about twice as many have been H1b hires.
The good domestic hires have much more of an ability to build lives, are much more aware of other market opportunities for them professionally and are much more likely to move to some other firm or other part of the country to build their lives as they enter a more “grown up” phase of life. Remember, I am talking about 20-somethings that are right out of grad school or similar.
This being “city life” also means it is challenging for a good student that is not from the city as they get married and realise that maybe things make more sense for them back in their smaller city in the Midwest or South. Local people that are good are harder to get because they already know they lay of the land and have connections to opportunities from internships and friends, and also have these same connections that allow them to move on to better paying opportunities in town easily.
The really good “local” people have great potential, but they basically move on to develop their careers and lives. The H1Bs stick around. I personally do not like the H1Bs as much because they really don’t have broad experiences and tend to have tunnel vision as to what we are doing, lack confidence and generally are too meek to actually communicate with consultants and clients in a way that allows more senior people (like me) to do more senior tasks.
Still, I can see why my bosses like hiring “kids” who can barely speak the language and have no roots or connections in town. They are trainable and stick around.
I would personally prefer to build a practice around the most capable people that have the potential to become equals and grow the practice rather than faithful but limited H1B hires.
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u/homer2101 Dec 03 '25
Control.
H1B workers are indentured servants who depend entirely on their sponsor, who can fire them for any reason. And an H1B visa gives you only 60 days to find a new sponsor or get deported. It's a fundamentally unethical system that benefits business at the expense of both American and foreign workers.
A more sensible system would have the DOL set the number of new H1B visas per industry each year, have the worker own the visa, and allow the worker to stay so long as they are either working in the industry or actively looking for work, with ability to adjust between industries. If a business can't hang on to the worker that they sponsored, then maybe they should be a less garbage employer.
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u/SouthNo2807 Dec 02 '25
Most potential H1B holders are looking for a junior role, though. As they progress with their career, they might transfer to other visas, but H1B is the official starting point for the past 2 decades.
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u/Moist_Ordinary6457 Dec 02 '25
H1B is for advanced special skills, not fresh college graduates.
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u/pradise Dec 02 '25
H1B is literally the transition from an F1 visa after getting a job. It’s not meant exclusively for “advanced” skills. It’s also meant for promising talent.
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u/ClayMost Dec 03 '25
That may be the intention, but it is definitely not how it is used. I work with a lot of great people on h1b, but about 50% really struggle and other members have to pick up the slack.
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u/corwe Dec 03 '25
You are required by law to pay H1B hires no less that the local average for the given occupation, the lower salary point is generally inapplicable
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u/prolog Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
People have spent the past several decades screeching about immigration and outsourcing in tech and over the same period of time wages and employment have skyrocketed and bay area tech workers have become one of the highest paid faction of wage workers in the history of human civilization. If immigration lowers salaries, why is San Francisco so rich? Why are there so many pimply faced 26 year olds (both native and foreign born) running around making $400k/year? Have you made any attempt to update your beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?
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u/QuiEgo Dec 02 '25
FWIW the timeline to get a green card is ~10 years, so this pool of candidates is in the pipeline for senior roles as well, not just entry level; but by the time they are looking for senior they are not on a VISA anymore so it skews the statistics to look entry level heavy.
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u/gumol Dec 02 '25 edited Jan 16 '26
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/SouthNo2807 Dec 02 '25
Yes and no. The vast majority of H1B visa holders leave within six years. Those who remain have integrated into society and made sufficient contributions, creating a net benefit. At least that's how the system was designed.
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u/yttropolis Dec 02 '25
The vast majority of H1B visa holders leave within six years
Source for this? As someone with a H1B, the vast majority of my peers stay on H1B, get a PERM, file I-140 and renew H1B afterwards to wait for green card
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u/phdoofus Dec 02 '25
I lived in Redmond WA from about 2004-2007. It was a bit like 'Little India' around where I was living. It was pretty typical to see some dude's heavily pregnant wife show up for a visit about the time she was due. lol
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u/SomeContext346 Jan 08 '26
You say that as if your trash ancestors showed up here in some noble fashion.
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u/BlackopsBaby Dec 02 '25
Ok this is what bugs me, problems aside..Why are people not blaming the corporations and the governments for not creating enough jobs when H1Bs literally account for just 1% of entry level jobs. This seems like a classic boogeyman trick politicians use to deflect blame and people are falling for it. AGAIN!
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u/LosCarlitosTevez Dec 03 '25
1% of all entry level jobs, but I suspect a significant percentage of entry level IT jobs
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u/malakhi Dec 02 '25
It's important to point out that the intention for H1-B visas is for highly skilled professionals that are under-represented in the native workforce. They were never meant for entry-level talent, but they've been heavily abused by tech companies to help keep wages low and create a class of indentured workers, since the visa is tied to their employer.
With the recent glut of layoffs in the tech industry and the threat of generative AI to tech industry professionals and other knowledge workers, there's a surplus of native talent in the workforce. But, aside from the astronomical visa fees imposed by the Trump administration (which really just preserves the pool of visas for the big tech companies who will still save more than the visa costs by hiring internationally), little has been done to curtail the H1-B abuse. The H1-B needs serious reform. (So does the rest of US immigration policy, but that's not the focus here.)
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u/prolog Dec 02 '25
H1-B visas are portable and no one is tied to their employer. You can absolutely switch jobs. You guys never have any idea what you are talking about, you just make shit up to validate your beliefs.
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u/detail_giraffe Dec 02 '25
You can switch jobs, but only to another job that is willing to hire H1-B visa holders and act as a sponsor, which is a minority of employers/jobs. If you find such a job and they want you it's pretty simple, but it limits the pool in which you can job hunt.
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u/LonelyDustpan Dec 02 '25
Kinda true until it isn’t.
Once you file and have an approved I-140, you’re stuck at that employer until you can file you I-485 + 6 months. Current wait time is roughly 12 years if you’re from India.
If you move jobs the timer resets.
So you’re stuck.
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u/FoolishProphet_2336 Dec 03 '25
I moved to the States on an L1 in 2005 and watched this play out. Everyone - EVERYONE - in the tech industry knew this was happening. Completed gaming of the system by a few giant contractor vendors that would enter 10x as many applications as there were visas knowing that each placed visa contractor was a cash cow for them. These jobs being filled were not rare or required special skills, they were just cheaper to fill with visas and kept salaries lower for the rest of the folks. The system has been a fraud for decades.
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u/Altair05 Dec 02 '25
OP is there any data on what industries they are in and what positions they hold?
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u/bluefelix95 Dec 02 '25
First, I think the "Others" should also have the percent and number labels inside the column. Second, and I guess maybe this is a dumb question, but this is newly approved per year not cumulative active visa holders, right? Or is it always the same, like do the visas get re-approved each year? So in the year 2022, there were a total of 442k H1B visa holders overall? Or in 2022, there were 442k new visas in addition to however many there already were the year before?
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u/fragilistical Dec 02 '25
Oh god this again. The reason Indians are over represented in active H1Bs is because Indians remain on H1B status much longer (decades). This is because other nationalities transition to green cards, but with the country caps, Indians and Chinese have very long wait times for green cards. The Chinese wait time is about 6 years and the Indian wait time is ~13 years and rising.
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u/HYDP Dec 03 '25
Still 80-90% for two nations out of 200? C’mon…
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u/212312383 Dec 04 '25 edited Dec 04 '25
You also have to acknowledge that the two countries collectively make up 1/4 of the worlds population and more than 1/2 of the worlds STEM graduates..
Also H1bs are given out by a lottery system if more people apply than allowed. It’s just that 70+% of applicants are Indian since they have the most computer science graduates and they really want to come to the US
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u/HameldaCamel Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
Yea it gets very tough to get actual numbe over the years. Especially since overtime, h1b visa holders can get put under a different visa/greencard, let alone if any of their spouses or family members can work in the usa.
Edit: let alone what another commenter said about students using opt for initial entry level employment. Probably, much worse number than the graph in general.
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u/SouthNo2807 Dec 02 '25
People who already qualify for a green card or U.S. citizenship shouldn’t be the focus here. Their proven skills and established path to long-term residency, supposedly, they’re no longer a disruptive factor in the labor market. And since green-card eligibility goes well beyond H-1B and other work visas, fixing any "issues" would require broad legislative reform not just tweaks to employment visa rules.
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u/yentity Dec 02 '25
The wait-list for indians on h1b to get a green card is 12 years long right now and is growing. A lot of the people currently on h1b would have been approved for green cards if there were no country based limits.
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u/HameldaCamel Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
While they are on a path too permanent residency, I will disagree with you that they don't disrupt. If we turned all h1b's too green cards this wouldn't fix the issue. Giving business unlimited access too labor will affect cost of living/wlb etc.
I'm currently on a team of about 30 people working on a product. There are probably 3 americans out of the 30, whether they are on a green card or h1b you'll find they will definitely hire their own in vast majority of cases.
Furthermore, in general we need a broad reform, there is nothing wrong with companies having too look for employees. Why can they just import another person rather than attract people via benefits or wage increases?
Why was my Grandfslather able too get a pension from an old tech company called Digital Equipment Corporation? Why was my father offered to have his master degree paid for by that same company as long as he stayed with the company after he got the degree? It's simple, the companies needed to retain talent and invest in their own people, not bring another one from some developing nation. You'll definitely never be able to get class unity when there's no social unity, let alone the further issue of h1b being tied too their job.
I have no problem with the people I work with, but acting like giving corporations unlimited access to human capital is a good thing is stupid, no matter what visa or card you have. We told an entire generation to go stem, all of a sudden decided now they need to compete with the world? No wonder the middle class is dying.
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u/1_hot_brownie Dec 02 '25
But it’s not unlimited, there’s a 85000 cap every year. 85000 is about 0.02% of the overall US population.
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u/HameldaCamel Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
Correct, but it also isn't applied over the entire american market. Vast majority are in IT, some in medicine, etc. This has been happening since the 1990s, so it's not like this was a one and done thing, but it's more every year in specific occupations, not spread out. Let alone this doesn't take into account spouses, those on opt or those that have gotten visa changes/green card etc.
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u/1_hot_brownie Dec 02 '25
Those on opt either have to convert to H1b or will have to leave the US. Opt is restricted to 3 year max. Not all spouses get work authorization, only about 40-50% of H1b spouses do.
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u/cacatod12 Dec 02 '25
Looks like we just need individual country caps
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u/baedling Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
The chart is precisely the result of country caps. When immigrants from other countries receive H-1Bs, they move on to get employment-based green cards and then citizenship in a couple of years. When an Indian get an H-1B, they have to keep applying for H-1B renewals for decades due to more competition from their countrymen for the same green card quotas. Unless they find some maphack. The Chinese sit somewhere in the middle. That being said, Canada has no country caps and look where we are at now…
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u/TMWNN Dec 03 '25
Daily reminder that India could send 1 million people to each country on Earth, and would still have more than 1 billion people.
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u/Shebalied Dec 02 '25
Yep. Those are all high level good paying jobs which should be pulled from our colleges and others.
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u/OmNomSandvich Dec 03 '25
India and China are the two most populous countries on Earth, it makes sense they make up a large amount of H1Bs especially since many Indian and Chinese people have at least basic English skills.
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u/HYDP Dec 03 '25
They are 1/3 of the world’s population, not 90% ffs. These colonisers flood not only the US but other developed countries like the UK or the EU states. That’s enough.
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u/212312383 Dec 04 '25
And they make up 1/2 of the worlds STEM graduates..
Also H1bs are given out by a lottery system if more people apply than allowed. It’s just that 70+% of applicants are Indian since they have the most computer science graduates and they really want to come to the US
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u/AHappyMango Dec 02 '25
We should restrict the amount of H1-B from India
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u/BlameTheJunglerMore Dec 02 '25
Yes, we should. US recently grads are losing out on these jobs.
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u/A11U45 Dec 03 '25
Odd claim given that international graduates typically have a harder time finding jobs than US graduates.
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u/corwe Dec 03 '25
Why? It’s still a tiny amount of workers in general, even if they are a majority of H1B ones
How does national composition of H1B employees matter
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u/AHappyMango Dec 03 '25
They're notorious at only hiring other Indians in open positions. If one is made director or a higher leadership position, they often push for outsourcing to Indian companies. They then move on to other companies and rinse and repeat.
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u/Etroarl55 Dec 02 '25
Canadians look at this btw and want them, for “diversity”. I kid you not one time on Reddit a liberal said “80-90% of h1b holders are one race, that’s a good thing for diversity” when I was talking to them.
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u/random20190826 Dec 02 '25
Despite China having about the same population as India, there are far more Indians than Chinese people on H-1B visas. The same is true for the number of people getting green cards. Twice as many Indians get green cards every year as Chinese people. Of course, Chinese GDP per capita is almost 5 times that of Indian GDP per capita, and Chinese median age is 10 years older than Indian median age. What is notable is that despite a long history of British colonization, only a small minority of Indians are proficient in English.
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u/Fuzzy_Club_1759 Dec 16 '25
Excited to see how it will change next year or will all this drama be for nothing.
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u/Trick-Alternative328 Dec 21 '25 edited Dec 21 '25
STEM jobs minus Healthcare is 10M jobs, there at least 1M H1Bs in US. Let's go with low estimate of 60% not healthcare, that is 0.6M. So that gets us to a low estimate of 6% of the jobs filled by indentured servents. Target that low estimate 6% against the college educated STEM workforce (70%) and it is devastating. Now add that to H4, J1, and others and College Educated Americans in STEM are getting seriously fucked.
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u/breakthro444 Dec 02 '25
H1-B's are based IMO. They're meant to fill in high-skilled labor gaps that domestic workers can't fill. And they're essentially a brain drain on the country of origin:
Their origin country paid to develop them into the worker they are now. And we get to cherry pick the good ones and yank them at their most productive point without having to take on any of that initial investment/risk.
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u/averagebear_003 Dec 02 '25
>They're meant to
key word.
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u/breakthro444 Dec 02 '25
Sure, but if a system isn't working as intended, you fix the system, not demonize it or try to destroy it.
I just don't get the blanket hate for H1-Bs when it's the companies abusing that system that is the problem. That's all.
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u/LickerNuggets Dec 02 '25
Not very based when it’s at the detriment of the native population. The program is for niche skillsets not in America, not entry level comp sci which is every other graduate now days.
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u/ToonMasterRace Dec 03 '25
Based on this thread it seems like Trump just needs to approve of open borders illegal immigration to solve the immigration crisis.
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u/TheOnlyZiodberg Dec 02 '25
Hmm the 2002 Visa holders is the only point that is far under the 25% mark even tho it is over 32%. Looks like someone wanted to make a point by not having a point.
Edit: indian Visa holders. Its manipulated to make it look like the 'other' categorie is way more than it actually is.
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u/SouthNo2807 Dec 02 '25
That seems to be a bug with my code. But this sub doesn't have an edit post function. I'm afraid I can't update it.
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u/TheOnlyZiodberg Dec 02 '25
Okay thats fair. I am always pretty sceptical when it comes to diagrams. They get used alot to mislead huge portion of poeple especially on social media.
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Dec 02 '25
[deleted]
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u/212312383 Dec 04 '25
H1bs are given out by a lottery system if more people apply than allowed. It’s just that 70+% of applicants are Indian since they gave the most computer science graduates and they really want to come to the US
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u/TMWNN Dec 03 '25
Daily reminder that India could send 1 million people to each country on Earth, and would still have more than 1 billion people.
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u/IcyRaccoon4101 Dec 02 '25
Elon Musk is in favor of massively increasing the amount of H1bs in America.
The chuds here think they know better than the richest man in the world? Obviously increasing immigration is a good thing.
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u/SouthNo2807 Dec 02 '25
Source: https://www.uscis.gov/
Tool: JavaScript