Vice President JD Vance accused Microsoft of laying off 6,000 American workers while securing thousands of H-1B visas and green cards. He said Microsoft replaced Americans with lower-paid foreign workers. An H-1B visa lets a U.S.
employer hire a foreign worker for a specialty job. GeekWire reported that Vance made the claim at an Oct. 8 White House news conference the GeekWire account of the news conference.
Table of Contents
- What Vance Claimed
- How the Layoff and Visa Numbers Compare
- How Microsoft Responded
- What the PERM Freeze Changes
What Vance Claimed
Vance cited 6,000 laid-off workers against 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards. He said no company abused the system more than Microsoft.
He framed each layoff as replaced by one and a half foreign indentured servants. SHRM described those White House remarks in its October coverage.
How the Layoff and Visa Numbers Compare
Microsoft began cutting about 6,000 jobs in May 2025. GeekWire reported the cut was under 3% of its 228,000-person global staff and hit many teams including LinkedIn the GeekWire report on the May layoffs.
Cited federal data listed 6,258 H-1B approvals and 3,157 PERM cases for Microsoft. That tally compares layoffs with approvals. It does not show the same person lost a job and a foreign worker took it.
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How Microsoft Responded
Microsoft said about 80% of its roughly 6,000 H-1B filings were extensions or status changes for current staff. It said those cases were not new hires and received equal pay for comparable work. The company said other new-hire filings involved people already legally in the United States.
Tech Times UK reported that Microsoft put that group at about 1% of its U.S. workforce the Tech Times UK report on Microsoft's response. President Brad Smith called the abuse claim completely off base.
What the PERM Freeze Changes
PERM is the Labor Department certification step for employer-sponsored green cards. TechSpot reported the department suspended Microsoft from the program and stopped new and pending Microsoft applications the TechSpot report on the PERM suspensions.
Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini were also listed. For affected workers and managers, the practical line is narrow: Employees waiting on company sponsorship should get the status of their own case from the employer or counsel.
- The freeze hits the green-card sponsorship step, not existing H-1B visas.
- It does not by itself change current visa holders' jobs.
- A layoff-versus-approval count does not prove direct replacement.
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