Posted on 07/09/2026 8:24:04 PM PDT by Red Badger
Microsoft just told 4,800 employees they no longer have a job. That is about 2.1% of its global workforce, and 1,600 of those cuts hit Xbox right away.
The same company was approved this year to hire 2,273 employer-sponsored H-1B foreign workers.
The comparison demands one caveat: nobody has shown that the same 1,600 Xbox workers, or the same 4,800 companywide, were swapped out one-for-one for visa holders.
The political response has been blunt.
The available data show overlapping corporate decisions, not a direct replacement map.
Those two numbers sitting next to each other are why so many American tech workers are angry this week.
The anger does not require a perfect one-to-one match. A visa program sold to Americans as a narrow tool for hard-to-find talent is running full speed alongside yet another mass layoff at one of the richest technology companies on the planet.
According to The Associated Press, Microsoft is eliminating 4,800 jobs, roughly 2.1% of its workforce, with 1,600 immediate cuts landing at Xbox.
Sharma said Xbox expects another 1,600 job cuts during the fiscal year that began in July. That pushes the planned Xbox reductions to about 3,200 people.
AP reported the company is also spinning off four game-development studios as part of the restructuring. Microsoft acquired gaming giant Activision Blizzard for $69 billion nearly three years ago, a deal meant to broaden its game portfolio and build a streaming-subscription business.
The cuts followed voluntary buyouts Microsoft offered to about 8,750 employees in May. More than 30% of the eligible workers accepted those offers, according to AP.
Sharma described Xbox as operating at margins three to ten times lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. In plain terms, she is saying the gaming unit does not make money like the rest of the company.
Microsoft said earlier growth bets did not expand at the pace it expected. The company’s chief people officer said the eliminated roles were not being handed to artificial intelligence, though changing technology and customer needs were reshaping the business.
That is the corporate explanation. It does not answer the question ordinary workers keep asking.
Fox News put the two stories side by side. The comparison was published July 9, three days after Microsoft announced the layoffs and one day after federal investigators announced a major visa-fraud probe.
Citing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data, Fox reported Microsoft was approved this year to hire 2,273 employer-sponsored, nonimmigrant H-1B workers. The company had additional applications pending beyond the approvals already counted.
H-1B is a temporary, employer-sponsored category for specialty occupations. The program is supposed to help companies fill jobs requiring highly specialized knowledge.
In the data Fox reviewed, Microsoft ranked as the sixth-largest H-1B beneficiary. Fox also reported that Microsoft employs workers around the world, but most of its employees are in the United States.
Fox noted the long-running criticism that the H-1B system can be used to depress wages or displace American workers. The report included a congressional call to end the program altogether.
Microsoft pushed back, saying layoff decisions were based on business need rather than visa status. The company also said H-1B employees were affected by the U.S. job eliminations.
Take that response at face value. The core policy problem remains.
A giant company can shed thousands of jobs while remaining one of the top requesters of foreign workers in the same window. Whether or not any single laid-off worker was directly replaced, that arrangement is exactly what critics of the program have been warning about for years.
The enforcement push now carries a direct political message.
Vice President JD Vance announced in Milwaukee that the Labor Department had started dozens of subpoenas and investigations into fraud in the visa program.
Vance framed it in America First terms. He argued that American jobs should go to American workers rather than foreign fraudsters.
That is the exact fault line the Microsoft numbers expose. The country was sold a program for talent it supposedly could not find, and it now watches enormous, profitable firms cut American staff while lining up thousands of visa workers.
On July 8, the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General announced a major investigation into alleged fraud and human trafficking in the H-1B and PERM systems.
The office said investigators had uncovered schemes involving fraudulent applications, coercive wage kickbacks, forced labor, and below-wage labor. It said those schemes harmed both vulnerable foreign workers and American workers.
The OIG launched a nationwide reporting campaign. It asked displaced U.S. workers, exploited foreign workers, and anyone with evidence of falsified applications, benching, coercion, or recruitment fraud to contact its hotline.
The office published a toll-free hotline at 1-800-347-3756 and said cash rewards or other benefits could be available for information that helps produce a timely prosecution.
The announcement covered the visa programs nationally.
It did not name Microsoft as a target or accuse the company of any of those crimes.
The inspector general put its message out directly.
Congress is starting to answer.
Representative Chip Roy’s office says his American White-Collar Worker Jobs Act of 2026 would scrap the H-1B lottery in favor of wage-based selection. His office describes the proposal as protection for American technology workers, particularly workers in STEM fields.
The bill would require employers to show a good-faith effort to hire Americans first. It would also block companies that recently conducted layoffs from bringing in H-1B workers.
On top of that, the proposal would end the use of H-1B visas as a pathway to permanent residency and eliminate the Optional Practical Training program.
Roy’s office said the bill is aimed at protecting American STEM professionals. It would also replace the current lottery with wage-based selection.
The proposal builds on Representative Eli Crane’s End H-1B Visa Abuse Act, which calls for a three-year pause followed by broader reforms.
That last piece speaks straight to the Microsoft situation. A rule barring recent-layoff companies from H-1B hiring would directly target the collision playing out right now.
None of this is about the workers who came here on a visa and did the job asked of them. The fight is over corporate labor strategy, federal rules that let it happen, and whether Washington finally protects American paychecks.
Microsoft is one of the wealthiest companies in human history.
When a firm like that eliminates 4,800 jobs while ranking sixth in the data Fox reviewed for foreign-worker approvals, the public reaction is fury, and it is earned.
The layoffs are real, the visa approvals are real, and for once the enforcement now has teeth behind it.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
H1Bs are as disgusting and immoral as illegals. Yet we get nothing but lip service from these azzholes. Texas will turn blue between muzzies and hindus and all this time we thought it would be the Mexicans.
I didn’t read the article but isn’t the head of the x-box division and indian chick? Perhaps she’s also an H1-B...
I have no idea..............
Maybe tariff money will help.
Oh wait, we don’t get any. ✖️
Thanks Donald. Promises made, promises not kept.
That’s the courts fault, not his...............
Indian chief of Xbox was born in Wisconsin.
That blows away your hypothesis.
The courts disallowed tariffs. There is no money to give out b
The numbers are enormous. 5 to 10+ million. They are running our schools and churches. It is worse than you think.
Remember, you are NOT being replaced.
“The courts disallowed tariffs. There is no money to give out”
There was about $600/American insured driver to give out.
I posted here on FR over 100 times for Freepers to ask for a share, which could have been obtained by Congress imposing a windfall profit income tax on tariff rebates.
It is now too late.
The importers got the $166 billion, you didn’t.
Our govt is supposed to protect our citizens..
I don’t know who is responsible for writing the software for my Windows 10 PC, but my PC should respond promptly to my keystrokes, not 30, 90 or 200 seconds later.
You really don’t understand Indian nepotism.
At least Trump is getting a new ballroom.
I had thought the $100K fee would be enough to stop a lot of this. Now I see that was insufficient. Raise the fee to $200K per H1b AND make it applicable to renewals as well as new applications.
That decision must be overturned. If the courts do not overturn it then we need Congress to enact it. The good news is it will be political suicide for RINOs and Democrats to oppose it. We should propose the legislation right now and force the Democrats to either back it or have it used against them in November.
The corrupt caste system is ingrained in the Indian no matter where the interloper is spawned.
Most dont realize the H-1b scam has been going on since the 90s. We are on the verge of a socialist take over and H-1b is one of the key reasons.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.