US Sens Grassley and Durbin raised concerns wrt major corporations filing thousands of H-1B skilled worker visa petitions even as they conducted large-scale layoffs of Americans.
<><>includes Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Cognizant
<><>plus Amazon, Apple, Deloitte, Google, JPMorgan Chase, Meta, Microsoft, and Walmart.
<><>TCS has plans to lay off over 12,000, including Americans;
<><>TCS is applying to hire 5,505 foreign H-1B workers in 2025.
<><>TCS is under investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
<><>TCS allegedly replacing older American staff with H-1B visa holders.
<><>Cognizant laid off thousands and applied for 2,493 H-1B employees.
<><>A 2024 federal jury found Cognizant favored South Asian H-1B workers over Americans;
<><>Cognozant punitive damages imposed.
<><>Amazon laid off tens of thousands while applying for 10,044 H-1B visas.
<><>Google cut large numbers, including managers, and applied for 4,181 foreign hires.
<><>Meta laid off 3,600 employees while applying for 5,123 H-1B workers.
<><>Microsoft laid off 16,000 but applied for 5,189 H-1B visas despite reporting record profits.
This may be very naive, but why do we have an H1-B visa program? If Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla and the other large companies feel they have to hire the “best” engineers and computer scientists who all come from Inida, why don’t they hire them in India? There is no need to bring them to the US. They can work from India.