Looking for the “Best and Brightest": Hiring difficulties and high-skilled foreign workers

This paper studies the complementarity between domestic and foreign skilled workers. It develops a simple model where employers seek to recruit a foreign worker when finding domestic workers takes more time. This paper confirms the predictions of the model. I rely on a within-firm within-occupation identification strategy to compare recruitment decisions made by a given employer for similar positions that differ in job posting duration. To identify this relationship, I have collected and assembled a new and original dataset at the job level. I match online job postings to administrative data on labor condition applications (LCAs) submitted as the first step in applying for H-1B temporary skilled worker visas. I find that employers are 28 percent more likely to submit an LCA when the job posting duration is one standard deviation longer. I provide evidence suggesting that this phenomenon is due to insufficient domestic labor supply in these occupations.