1What the data covers
The DOL's Labor Condition Application (LCA) disclosure data is public and updated quarterly. Every employer that sponsors an H-1B must file an LCA disclosing the role, prevailing wage, actual wage, and whether the application was certified or denied. Three years of this data — Q1 2022 through Q4 2024 — across the 100 largest US tech employers by headcount gives a clearer picture than any annual survey.
A few important caveats: LCA data is not the same as H-1B cap petition data. An LCA is filed before the cap lottery. Certified LCA count doesn't equal approved H-1B count. But LCA volume and certification rate are the best public proxy for hiring intent toward H-1B workers — and they show clear patterns across employers.
2Companies filing the most LCAs (2022–2024)
Filing volume is the clearest signal of active H-1B hiring intent. The top 10 filers by LCA count across the three-year window: Amazon (312,000+ LCAs), Infosys (287,000+), Tata Consultancy Services (241,000+), Cognizant (198,000+), Google (156,000+), Microsoft (143,000+), Meta (89,000+), Apple (71,000+), Deloitte (68,000+), Wipro (61,000+).
The consulting and IT services firms (Infosys, TCS, Cognizant, Wipro) dominate by volume — they sponsor primarily for client-placement roles. For tech product companies, Amazon and Google lead by a significant margin. The gap between the product companies and everyone else is wider than most candidates assume.
3Approval rates across employer types
LCA certification rates are high across the board — above 95% for most large employers. LCA denial is rare. The more meaningful variable is post-lottery I-129 approval rate, which is harder to extract from public data. The proxy the pipeline uses is LCA-to-hire ratio: certified LCAs divided by estimated H-1B hires in the same period (sourced from Glassdoor and LinkedIn hiring data).
Product companies show ratios closer to 1:1 — they file LCAs with genuine intent to hire. Consulting firms show ratios significantly above 1:1, suggesting bench filing for placement pipelines. For a candidate evaluating sponsorship reliability, the LCA-to-hire ratio matters more than raw certification rate.
4Salary medians by employer and role
LCA filings disclose both the prevailing wage (the floor set by DOL for the role/location) and the actual wage offered. For the top 20 product-company filers, the software engineering median actual wage across 2022–2024: $175,000–$225,000. Data roles (ML, Data Science): $185,000–$235,000. Product Management: $160,000–$210,000.
The prevailing wage floor is consistently below the actual wage at top product companies — a useful check when evaluating whether a company's sponsorship history suggests fair compensation. Companies whose actual wages are consistently close to the prevailing wage floor are worth additional scrutiny.
5Trend by company: filing more or pulling back
H-1B Filing Trends 2022 vs 2024
Filing more in 2024 vs 2022
- Amazon: +23% filing growth. Google: +18%. Meta: +31% (rebounding from 2023 freeze). Microsoft: +9%. Apple: +14%.
- The 2023 dip across most product companies was driven by the post-2022 hiring freeze. 2024 filings show recovery toward or above pre-freeze levels for most large employers.
Flat or declining
- Twitter/X: filing volume collapsed after 2022 ownership change. Intel: -28%, reflecting layoffs and manufacturing sector slowdown. Cisco: -12%. Salesforce: -8% (consolidated from post-Slack acquisition peak).
- Flat filing from a historically active sponsor isn't necessarily a red flag — it often tracks headcount freeze cycles rather than policy change.
New or growing sponsors
- Anthropic, OpenAI, and Mistral showing significant LCA volume for 2024 relative to their earlier years. AI-native companies are actively filing for ML, research, and engineering roles.
- Series B–D AI companies are increasingly willing to sponsor where historically only public tech companies did. Worth checking the H-1B sponsors database for specific companies before assuming they don't sponsor.
6What the scoring engine does with this data
The H-1B sponsors database in the pipeline pulls directly from LCA disclosures and updates quarterly. For any job posting, you can see the employer's filing history, certification rate, median wage for the specific role type, and year-over-year filing trend — without leaving the scoring view.
This matters most when evaluating whether to invest time in an application. A company with 0 LCA filings in the last 24 months almost certainly won't sponsor. A company with 500+ filings and a median wage above prevailing is a meaningfully different application than the same role at a company with an unclear history.
Written by
Jesse Johnson
Founder, ShouldApply
Founder of ShouldApply. I write about job search strategy, hiring, and how to spend your time on opportunities that actually fit. Full bio →
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Frequently Asked Questions
High volume signals active sponsorship intent, not ease of access. Large employers file thousands of LCAs but are also highly selective. The useful signals are: filing growth trend (are they filing more or less than 2 years ago?), actual wage vs. prevailing wage (are they paying above floor?), and role type concentration (do they file for the specific role type you're targeting?).
Yes. Companies that have never filed an LCA almost never sponsor — they're not in the pipeline. Companies with 100+ filings per year and a role type that matches yours are worth prioritizing. The H-1B sponsors database in the pipeline filters by employer, role category, and filing recency so you can find active sponsors for your specific target role.
An LCA (Labor Condition Application) is filed with the DOL before the actual H-1B cap petition. It certifies wage and working conditions. An I-129 petition is then filed with USCIS for the cap lottery. LCA certification is nearly automatic for compliant employers. The cap lottery is the actual limiting factor for cap-subject petitions. Cap-exempt positions (universities, nonprofits, cap-exempt employers) don't go through the lottery.
Increasingly yes. Anthropic, OpenAI, and similar AI-native companies show significant LCA volume for 2024, concentrated in ML engineering, research, and infrastructure roles. The salary medians are above industry average for the roles. For ML and AI research roles specifically, these are among the most active new sponsors to emerge in the last 2 years.
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