That is incorrect.
If Microsoft is keeping the H-1B guest worker visa holders, they are only here because Microsoft said they couldn't find equivalent citizen workers.
If Microsoft now has a pool of equivalent workers, then they can no longer justify keeping the H-1B workers, because the "special skills" need is gone. Cheaper laber rate does not equal "special skill."
Now, I'm sure that one way to get around this is to have the H-1B workers actually be L1 workers of a contracting company, such as Satyam workers at a local USA office. Microsoft then contracts for Satyam workers, and Satyam brings them over as L1 instead of Microsoft bringing them over as H-1B.
Still, the purported purpose of the H-1B visa need was the demand for "special skills" during the dot-com bubble and the lack of skilled web programmers. That need has dried up, and the talent pool for that skill is commodity now.
Microsoft just wants to avoid paying domestic labor rates, which is not the purpose for H-1B visas.
-PJ
You know how that works in practice, don't you?
They (not just Microsoft; it's ubiquitous) set outrageously and arbitrarily high qualifications for Americans, then, when no American can meet those qualifications, they hire an Indian contractor for 1/4th the price who meets none of those qualifications.
There are actually cases where companies have been caught demanding "2 years of on the job experience with X", when X has only been on the market for 6 months! (IOW: The only people who could meet the stated qualifications were people who had actually helped to develop X.)
I wonder how many who would disagree with you (for whatever reason they give), if they are, in fact, closet supporters of illegal immigration/amnesty and cheap slave labor? Frankly, I’m seeing a running theme among more than a few. Some of us have concluded that those who always seem to find themselves on the side of illegals either employee them, are married/related to them, or are them.