Pharmaceutical and Medicine Manufacturing H-1B Wage Premium
The DOL prevailing wage is the legal minimum an employer must pay for a given role, level, and location, not a target. Employers classified under Pharmaceutical and Medicine Manufacturing (NAICS 3254) pay a median of 11.2% above that floor, but 23.8% of filings are at or within 1% of the legal minimum.
What "Wage Premium" Means
Every H-1B Labor Condition Application states a DOL-determined prevailing wage, the minimum legally required for that occupation, experience level, and worksite. Wage premium is how much an employer's actual offered wage exceeds that floor. A 0% premium means the filing states exactly the legal minimum; it is not evidence of a problem, but it means the offered wage carries no information beyond what the law already requires.
Premium varies enormously by employer within the same industry, some pay the floor on every filing, others consistently pay well above it. The table below is not a ranking of employer quality; it measures one thing only: how each employer's offered wage compares to the legal minimum for Pharmaceutical and Medicine Manufacturing filings.
Employers Paying Furthest Above the Floor
| Employer | Certified Filings | Avg. Premium |
|---|---|---|
| AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP | 502 | +53.3% |
| E.R. Squibb & Sons, LLC | 58 | +45.7% |
| Akorn Operating Company LLC | 32 | +37.5% |
| Abbvie US LLC | 154 | +36.3% |
| Celgene Corporation | 57 | +36.3% |
| Lilly USA, LLC | 37 | +33% |
| Abbvie Inc. | 860 | +32.5% |
| Bristol-Myers Squibb Company | 982 | +32.1% |
Employers with at least 30 certified filings in this industry, ranked by average premium over prevailing wage.
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Computed from US Department of Labor LCA disclosure files for employers classified under NAICS 3254, Pharmaceutical and Medicine Manufacturing, comparing each filing's offered annual wage to its own DOL prevailing wage figure (annualized from an hourly rate where filed hourly), filtered to certified petitions with annual wages between $30K and $1M and a positive prevailing wage on file. Per-employer premium is shown only where an employer has at least 30 qualifying filings in this industry, to keep the percentage from being driven by a handful of cases.