Labour visas, from the federal disclosure files

The H-1B Explorer

H-1B is discussed as a visa for software engineers. Most of it is. This site is about the rest.

Everything here is built from the Department of Labor's own disclosure files and the USCIS employer data, at render time. No figure is typed onto a page. Where the record stops, the pages say so rather than guessing.

A certified application is permission to employ, not proof of hiring. Nothing on this site says any employer or worker broke a rule. These are public records of what employers asked for.

8,081,883

certified applications read

de-duplicated by case number across every quarterly release

4,783

industry codes

six digits, which separates a staffing firm from a law firm

38,705

public-sector green-card filings

with the worker's citizenship, FY2013–FY2024

10

cases below

each one a figure you can check against the source

The filings nobody expects

Each of these is in the government's own files. Several are perfectly ordinary things for a visa to cover; they are here because they are the opposite of how the programme is usually described. The figures resolve from the data when this page is built, so none of them can go stale without the page changing.

Petrol stations

1,675
certified applications
777
distinct employers
$60,000
median wage offered

Certified labour condition applications filed by petrol stations and convenience retail, across hundreds of separate employers.

H-1B is a visa for a speciality occupation requiring at least a bachelor's degree. These are filed under the industry code for filling stations.

The industry code is the employer's own answer. A firm that owns stations and does something else too files under one code for all of it.

Building cleaning and maintenance

175
certified applications
116
distinct employers
$43,000
median wage offered

Applications in the occupation group that covers janitors, cleaners and groundskeeping.

This is the occupational classification itself, not an industry: the employer named a cleaning or maintenance occupation on the form.

Food preparation and serving

1,556
certified applications
903
distinct employers
$48,000
median wage offered

Applications in the occupation group covering cooks, food service managers and serving staff. Panda Express is among the employers in the wider record.

Restaurant work is the standard example of what a speciality-occupation visa is not for.

Personal care and service

1,518
certified applications
$34,500
median wage offered
$82,100
against the postsecondary teaching median

Applications in the group covering personal care aides, childcare and related work. The lowest median wage of any occupation group measured here.

A wage at this level is below what the programme's critics and defenders both assume is the floor.

Farming, fishing and forestry

1,728
certified applications
342
distinct employers
$39,270
median wage offered

Applications in the agricultural occupation group, filed on H-1B rather than on the agricultural visa built for it.

H-2A exists for seasonal agricultural labour and has its own wage rules. These filings did not use it.

Sponsored while holding a tourist visa

521
public-sector filings flagged

Permanent-residence filings where the worker held something that is not work authorisation when the employer filed: a B-2 visitor visa, temporary protected status, parole, or no inspection at all.

The ordinary path runs H-1B then permanent residence. These filings start somewhere else entirely.

See the filings →

Lawful in itself. An employer may petition for someone in any of these positions, and the filing says nothing about how the person came to be in it.

US citizens on permanent-residence filings

95
filings naming a US citizen

Filings that record the worker as a United States citizen, including some born in the United States.

A US citizen cannot need a labour certification. The field is almost certainly mis-keyed, which makes this a defect in a federal disclosure file that nobody had looked for.

See the filings →

A state motor-vehicle agency

87
state-agency filings nationally, all published whole

The Washington State Department of Licensing sponsored an IT applications specialist for permanent residence in FY2021. The worker was a citizen of Hong Kong, born in Hong Kong. The state Attorney General's office sponsored an Assistant Attorney General the same way in FY2023.

These are posts inside the machinery of a state government, and both are published with the worker's citizenship, the wage and the case number.

See the filings →

One school district, one role, one country

6,497
school-district filings nationally
1,461
largest citizenship among them, nationally

Dallas Independent School District's largest single role is Elementary Bilingual Teacher. The great majority of those filings name Mexican citizens.

A single employer, a single job title, and a nationality distribution that is nothing like the national one. Open the employer on the public-sector page to see every role and who filled it.

See the filings →

Elementary and secondary schools

65,470
certified applications
8,334
distinct employers
$50,317
median wage offered

Certified applications filed by K-12 schools and districts, from thousands of separate employers.

The H-1B debate is conducted almost entirely about technology companies. Public schools are one of the largest filing sectors in the country.

See the filings →

The reports

Each one stands alone and says what it cannot show.

Who the public sector sponsors

Universities, school districts and state agencies. Every state-agency filing published whole, with the worker's citizenship and the case number. Open any employer to see its roles and who filled them.

H-1B in state government

The temporary work visas at agencies of state government, FY2009 onward. More numerous than the permanent filings, and it cannot name a nationality against an employer.

The visa body shops

The firms whose business is supplying workers to other companies, separated from the firms that hire for their own work, using the employers' own answers on their own filings.

Who files the visas

The employers behind the volume.

Hiring a foreigner with no visa

Employer-of-record firms let an American company hire abroad with no visa at all. There is no federal count of this route and there cannot be, which makes every visa figure a floor.

Data Asks

What a federal office holds, or once published, that would answer a question these pages cannot. Most of it needs no new collection.

How to read any of this

  • Count applications, never positions. One application can cover forty workers. Weighting by positions hands every share to the bulk filers.
  • Positions are not people. A certified application is permission to employ. Every figure here is a ceiling on intent, not a count of arrivals.
  • Never add initial and continuing approvals. A continuing approval is the same person renewed; adding them counts one worker once a year for as long as they stay.
  • Industry and occupation are the employer's own answers on its own form, made under penalty of perjury. They are not anyone's opinion about a company, and they are also not audited.
  • Every employer total is a floor. The files carry the name as typed and nothing stable, so one company appears under many spellings.

This site shares its data and its builders with the graduate-pipeline site, which covers degrees, enrolment and funding. The visa pages are here; the pipeline pages are there.