White House blocks Microsoft from foreign worker hiring program
An international visa program has for years allowed US tech companies to hire highly skilled workers from abroad.
White House blocks Microsoft from foreign worker hiring program
The White House has frequently made sweeping assertions about international workers and immigration.
Microsoft and several other technology companies have been prevented by the White House from hiring skilled foreign workers on a permanent basis through a widely used visa program.
On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance accused Microsoft and other firms of fraud in connection with the H1b visa programme and a related route for workers from overseas to become permanent US residents.
Vance said Microsoft, one of the most valuable companies in the US, has effectively been swapping American workers for "foreign indentured servants."
Microsoft said that most of the H1b visas it filed over the past financial year were for current employees, who are paid the same as local staff.
"No company in the US has abused this system more than Microsoft," Vance said.
He made similar allegations against Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini.
At the same conference, Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling said the US government will not process any new or pending Permanent Labor Certification Program (PERM) applications from Microsoft or the seven other companies.
Sonderling said companies such as Microsoft, along with US universities, had become "visa mills" that were "flooding" the US with foreign workers.
The total number of H1b visas, which are a prerequisite for anyone seeking to go through the PERM process, is capped
A Microsoft spokeswoman told the BBC that "the vast majority of Microsoft employees in the United States are Americans." The company has more than 200,000 employees worldwide.
Vance said on Thursday that Microsoft had laid off about 6,000 workers and submitted 6,800 H1b visa applications during the same period. He argued this showed the company was using foreign workers to replace domestic workers and "undercut" their wages.
The Microsoft spokeswoman said that 80% of the H1b visa filings the company made over the last fiscal year were for employees already working at Microsoft, rather than new hires.
She added that the international workers Microsoft does hire through the H1b visa program are paid the same compensation as a worker from the US would receive.
According to Ellis, a company that helps many tech firms with the process of hiring skilled workers from abroad, the median salary
"We look forward to providing the Administration with additional information," the Microsoft spokeswoman said.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft's longtime CEO, was at the White House on Thursday to receive a new medal for technology innovation from President Donald Trump.
Nadella also attended other recent White House events, including a luncheon on artificial intelligence and a state dinner for China's President Xi Jinping.
Still, Microsoft was the target of Vance's criticism on Thursday.
"Our message to Microsoft is quite simple: You're a great American company, you've got to hire great American workers. You cannot lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants," Vance said.
He said he used that phrase for workers from abroad because if they are fired or laid off by the company that sponsored their visa, they "have to leave" the US.
Usually, such a worker has a 60-day grace period in that situation. Last month, the US government proposed eliminating
Every major tech company in the US hires international workers through the H1b visa program, and has done so for many years, including Amazon, Google, Meta, Apple, Nvidia, and more.
None of those companies were mentioned in Vance's remarks on Thursday.
For decades, the program has been intended for highly skilled or specialized workers that a company needs but cannot find or hire domestically.
The PERM program is a route for such workers to become permanent US residents, often leading to a Green Card that would allow them to stay and work in the US indefinitely.
During the last fiscal year, the US Department of Labor certified