US Vice President JD Vance accuses Microsoft of laying off 6,000 Americans while hiring thousands of foreigners. The software company points to the shortage of skilled workers. Elite universities are also being targeted by the Trump administration.
The US government accuses the software giant Microsoft of abusing the process that allows qualified foreign workers to immigrate to the US. Last year, the Windows company laid off 6,000 American employees and at the same time benefited from 6,300 employees from abroad with so-called H-1B visas, Vice President JD Vance complained to journalists in Washington.
After multiple extensions of H-1B visas, companies can apply for permanent residency rights for employees. For decades, this has been the way talented professionals from around the world land in top American companies. Among others, the current Microsoft boss Satya Nadella once received an H-1B visa in the 1990s. Google boss Sundar Pichai also once worked with it. The administration of US President Donald Trump criticizes the system because it disadvantages American workers who are replaced by foreigners. Companies counter that in many cases there are not enough specialists in the USA.
No company has abused the permanent residency process as much as Microsoft, Vance said. That's why Microsoft will be excluded "until further notice," said Labor Minister Keith Sonderling. The US government is also taking action against several consulting companies and the Photoshop developer Adobe. These companies will not accept any new applications for permanent residency rights for foreign employees. It's about the fact that "hundreds of thousands of jobs have been taken away from American workers."
In a response, Microsoft emphasized that 80 percent of the approximately 6,000 H-1B applications submitted in the last fiscal year were about changing or extending the status of existing employees. The remaining applications were also for people who were already legally in the USA but did not work for Microsoft. At the same time, it was said that foreign employees were paid just as well as their US colleagues. The job cuts at Microsoft primarily affected management positions, while the foreign employees tended to be programmers and other tech experts.
University exchange visas under pressure
Another type of visa is also apparently a thorn in the Trump government's side: the government is targeting nine renowned US universities, including Harvard, Yale and Stanford, because of the use of so-called J-1 exchange visas for foreign researchers and students. Vance accuses universities of using cheaper labor from abroad and depressing the wages of American employees. According to the Ministry of Labor, investigations are already underway.
In the USA, the important parliamentary election is coming up at the beginning of November, in which the entire House of Representatives and around a third of the Senate are up for election. If Trump's Republicans lose their current majority in even one chamber of Congress, it will become more difficult for the president to implement his agenda. Polls show great dissatisfaction with Trump's policies and good chances for a strong performance for the Democratic Party.
The Republicans around Trump have been trying for weeks, among other things, to declare the Democrats "communists" and "socialists" in order to activate their supporters. When asked how he defined socialism, Vance said that in the United States it currently boils down to replacing American workers with foreigners and letting boys compete in girls' sports. He was referring to the controversy over transgender athletes that Trump sparked in his 2024 presidential campaign.
