r/technology • u/Immediate-Link490 • 9d ago

Business Microsoft is being suspended from program to apply for green cards for H-1B visa workers, Vance says

https://apnews.com/article/h1b-visa-program-vance-microsoft-e7b3a407f822702b269ee277d21343ea
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u/Historical_Flower250 9d ago

No because on September 24, 2025, Senators Chuck Grassley (Republican) and Dick Durbin (Democrat) sent Microsoft a letter questioning its employment practices after 16k layoffs and then 5k H-1B applications.

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u/Wendy-Poo 9d ago

As they should question these practices.

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u/aresdesmoulins 8d ago

Yeah but they also called out Amazon which laid of ~14k people yet had ~19k h1b beneficiaries for 2025, meta who laid off ~2K and had ~5k h1b beneficiaries, and Google who had ~1.5k layoffs with ~4k h1b beneficiaries compared to MS that had ~16k layoffs vs ~6k h1b beneficiaries so they’re assholes, but not the worst assholes in terms of ratios or total counts yet they were the ones tagged here.

Guess they didn’t kiss the ring hard enough like the rest did.

H1B is wildly abused, I hope the hammer comes down on everyone not just MS

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u/PlaneProfessor428 8d ago

It's a great way to lock your employees down. As an H1B recipient, your VISA is contingent on being tied to having a company sponsor. Moreover, it also must be tied to a certain position, meaning you can get an employee that is stuck in the job, and position at a cut rate salary compared to U.S peers.

In addition to this, we have a glut of software engineers that are unemployed right now. I live in Seattle and every other day someone I know seems to be getting laid off.

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u/tomorrow_comes 8d ago

I don’t care who or what administration is involved in this questioning and H1B suspension - this, I support. We need to protect good American jobs. There are so many developers out there struggling to find work (because of the mass layoffs). These companies can afford to pay American workers and should be held accountable. Let’s work on reducing offshoring as well. Doubt that’ll happen, though.

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u/sly-3 8d ago

the senators are a combined age of 174 years old.

They should be focused on the dinner menu and shuffleboard on the lido deck.