An Independent Investigation
The talent shortage
is a myth.
This is labor arbitrage.
Three of America's largest banks filed 7,474 Labor Condition Applications for foreign workers. Public records expose the playbook: file at scale, pay the legal minimum, and lock workers in with green card sponsorship.
The Numbers
What the public records show.
Every data point here comes from federal filings these companies made themselves — the same data they hope nobody reads.
The Playbook
The talent shortage is a myth.
This is labor arbitrage.
File at Scale
Thousands of Labor Condition Applications filed per year. Volume is the strategy.
Pay the Floor
Nearly a third of filings cluster right at the prevailing wage minimum. Compliance minimums, not competitive offers.
Route to Low-Cost Cities
Workers sent to locations where prevailing wage obligations are lowest. Geographic arbitrage baked into the system.
Lock Them In
Sponsor green cards. The worker can't leave, can't negotiate, can't push back. Their immigration status is the leash.
The Companies
Three banks. Thousands of filings.
Click through for the full data breakdown on each institution.
Methodology
All sourced. All public.
This entire investigation runs on public federal data — filings these companies submitted to the Department of Labor, USCIS, the SEC, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
They created the paper trail. We read it.
Note: LCA filings are not the same as H-1B petitions. One worker can have multiple LCAs across different years or locations. The data shows filing volume and patterns — which is exactly the point. The pattern is the story.
Stay Informed
This is just
the beginning.
New research published weekly. More companies, more industries, more data to go through.