This creates an incentive for H-1B workers to tolerate working conditions that American workers wouldn't.
And while yes, if have an ongoing green card process which takes 12-18 months, you may have an incentive to stick around to see it to completion, anyone who has their I-140, does not actually “lose their place” in the green card process. They can file for a new I140 and retain their place in the queue by retaining the priority date from the previous application.
If you think US citizens don’t stick around for a bit in a shitty job for a variety of reasons, then you’d be lying. People (including US citizens) don’t just quit jobs whenever they want without a plan like you’re making it sound. At least not ones that carry a reasonable wage, health insurance and other benefits. Again, all with the caveat of me not talking about consulting firms, which obviously don’t exactly have the best workplace environments.
That’s doing a lot of heavy lifting, which is what I meant by depending on where they are in the process.
You have 2 employees at the same company in a bad job market.
If employee A gets laid off or fired, he has enough savings for a 2 year job search and can pay for COBRA for 18 months.
If employee B gets fired or laid off, he has 60 days to find a job and make it through the hiring process.
There’s been 1 round of layoffs and there are rumors there might be another. The boss asks both of them to put in extra hours, which one is more likely to say no?
And FYI, you have 60 days to search for jobs but you can convert to B visas and continue your job search for another year. USCIS has clarified that, so H1Bs are also not that constrained as you’re making it out to be.
A large percentage of American workers have a spouse who also works full time whose health insurance they can switch too. If a company fires an H-1B employee they can also withdraw their I-40, which means their spouse will lose their work authorization.
>Paying COBRA for 18 months is wildly expensive
It's $400-$700 a month on average for an individual. More expensive for people with families, but as I discussed above in the majority of families, both parents work.
Someone here on a visitor visa also doesn't qualify for any ACA subsidies that an American scraping by on contract work while job searching would qualify for.
At a population level, if you divide people into 2 groups. And you add significant extra consequences to being fired to group B, group B will work harder to avoid being fired all else being equal.
The stress level related to immigration status, whether or not it was worth risking a change, etc, was way higher.