(2023Q2 Update!) Actuarial Salaries for U.S. Work Visa Applicants

Update for 2023Q2

I've received numerous requests to reun this analysis, originally posted in mid 2021, and to celebrate the facelift of my homepage, I've done just that. Some observations:

  1. The slope of the regression line has increased substantially. When originally posted in 2021Q2, the regressed line at 6/30/2021 was at $105k. That same date sits at $112k, suggesting that salaries are increasing faster than linearly
  2. The effect of the pandemic is stark - you can see a significant drop in data density for 18 months post March 2020. By 2023Q1 this activity seems to have picked back up, but not to the level it was in 2019.
  3. When comparing median wages by year, there is actually a significant bump in 2021 vs 2019-20 & 2022. The data seems to support the theory that companies pulled back on applying for entry level PERM/H1Bs in 2021 during the height of COVID, instead focussing on higher paying management roles.

Original Article

Every Actuary knows about and loves to peruse the Actuarial Salary Surveys published by recruiters. Imagine my surprise when I discovered there was a treasure trove of Actuarial salary data available to the public just waiting to be aggregated!

The Department of Labour publishes "Performance Data" that detail applications made by foreign employees and their US employers. For H1B and PERM applications, this includes "Prevailing Wage" data, which is defined by the DoL as "the average wage paid to similarly employed workers in a specific occupation in the area of intended employment".

Of course, the data is messy, schemas are ever changing and errors are in the data. Luckily as an Actuary this is something I deal with everyday. Using a combination of R, JavaScript and GoogleSheets, I've put together the below exhibit to let you explore this data.

Data Disclaimer

While effort has been made to accurately aggregate this data, I make no claims to the correctness of the results

Want to play with the data yourself? It's available in this gSheet.

  1. The data contains Prevailing Wage information for H1B and PERM applications from 2009Q3 to 2023Q1

  2. Data was pulled by matching any record where Job Title (or similar) contained "actuar"

  3. I've grouped the original Job Titles into eight generalized groups, based on some keywords. This involved some judgement, and the mapping can be found in the gSheet above

  4. I have also modified some Employer names where multiple entries had slightly different text (i.e. "LLC"). This allows them to group, and the mapping used is also in the gSheet.

  5. This data contains base salaries only. Total compensation can include bonuses and equity.