Did you ever imagine if both ends of the spectrum are true? Maybe there is a talent shortage and maybe there are companies trying to get cheap labor from abroad. We are a reasonable sized company trying to recruit people with advanced skills. Finding talent that includes large number of H1B's is hard on its own. Forget finding talent that excludes 95% of the world (aka H1B's). Most of the candidates I get to interview are usually immigrants. Why? I don't know. We have zero motivation to hire immigrants specifically. We pay way higher than an average company and are more interested in talented candidates than saving money. It's just that immigrants are the ones with the skills that we need.

Also, the notion that H1b's are cheap is not always true. With the added costs of filing H1b visa and green card, the true costs are much higher, especially in a cutting edge industry.