As reported by InformationWeek, Yoh has prepared a press release that again proclaims that tech workers are being paid "near record wages."First Yoh unethically downplays that these wages are only contract wages, which could be as short as one day. They bear no relation to the wages paid to full-time employees, which are substantially lower. Yoh should make that more clear in the future.
Yoh fails to disclose that their "all-time high" wage determination does not factor in inflation. They use a base of 100 in January 2001, reaching 113.60 in Week 36 of 2007, or a 13.6% increase in wages over 6.5 years.
But according to this BLS calculator, inflation during the same period would have raised 100 to 117.72.
Thus when adjusted for inflation, the Yoh study actually finds that IT contract wages have continued to erode during this decade.
Yoh's study is further evidence that H-1b are underpaid. While Yoh cited $50 and $80 per hour as only "average wages," The average H-1b programmer -- who presumably is being brought in because they have the "hot" skills -- is paid about $52,000, according to a 2005 study.
Virtually NO H-1b LCA is for $50 per hour, and I've never seen an LCA for a software developer approach the "average" wage of $80 per hour.
Yoh's website fails to disclose salary ranges for most of their positions. Yoh's LCA filing for H-1b are here - but most are not software development occupations.
We had addressed the bias in Yoh's studies last April - nothing has changed.
