Accountants in my family and several friends. All Americans.
Great job security. Accountants are always in demand.
What you don’t seem to understand is that most of them work 7 days a week, at least in their busy periods. No rest for the weary in that profession, especially in the big accounting firms. Few 40-hr. work weeks.
So your H1B accountants were just being treated like Americans.
At least, in these days of remote computing, some of the work can be done from home evenings and weekends.
“Accountants are always in demand.”
Rather than have market forces drive wages up (as happened in tech), they’ll just import accountants to keep them down. There is no shortage of Americans with Accounting degrees; there is no reason to import them. It is done (again, as happened in tech) to keep wages down; I’ve seen it myself with going rates today. Next they’ll be whining that American students don’t go into accounting...
“At least, in these days of remote computing, some of the work can be done from home evenings and weekends.”
Work that can be done via remote computing is the first to go to Asia. When Americans balk at 60 hour workweeks as the norm, those jobs are gone (or all Asian at that point).