Public sentiment regarding Microsoft's layoffs and the hiring of H-1B visa workers is predominantly negative, reflecting concerns over job security for American workers and criticism of corporate practices that prioritize foreign talent. While some express nationalism and frustration, others see potential benefits for India's tech industry, underscoring a complex emotional landscape where feelings of betrayal and economic instability collide with optimism about India's growth.

Microsoft

U.S. Government

H-1B Visa Workers

American Workers

Indian Tech Workers

The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.

What do you think of Microsoft laying off workers and replacing them with H1B visa workers? Obviously Microsoft shareholders benefit from reduced labor costs and workers that will put up with more mistreatment by their employer. Is it good for the US to have more people earning less money and more unemployed competing for the same amount of resources? 

*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*

AutoModerator

You’d have to have some evidence that it was actually nefarious as depicted here.

It is actually not abnormal for a company to be bringing in entry and mid-level employees on a regular basis even when they are doing reductions in other areas.

To my knowledge , I don’t think the latest round of layoffs was based on a particular business unit or geographical area but a lot of tech companies over hired for a period and so they might be a bit top-heavy.

You would also need to produce some evidence that the people being let go, don’t include H1B visa holders. 

Microsoft also has what amounts to a supply chain bringing over people from overseas since they generally need that talent even in a booming economy and so maintaining that pipeline makes sense.

ButGravityAlwaysWins

Microsoft received or renewed 4,725 H1-B visas in FY2024. Total H1Bs are capped at 85K a year. 

They hired about 7,000 new people last year (a workforce increase of 3%)

They are pushing into AI, and the US labor market doesn't have the capability. The layoffs were predominately in the Xbox and Microsoft Gaming divisions. This is a restructuring.

Its not like Microsoft is not investing in the U.S. workforce pipeline. They have penned agreements to invest $4B through 2030 in K-12 to increase technology and AI literacy and skillsets. That is on top of collaborative research relationships with a couple of universities.

olidus

I hate it. A former company I worked for did this. You shouldn’t fire American workers on the premise of cost cutting only to then hire H1Bs. There should be major tax penalties for shit like this.

Jernbek35

Not a fan. H1B visa workers are very exploited.

Breakintheforest

Companies should be able to hire whoever they want

BalticBro2021

Microsoft is a huge company, and there isn’t any evidence given that these are the same jobs.

letusnottalkfalsely

I’m not shocked that a major company is looking for ways to hire employees who are less capable of exerting leverage and advocating for better situations. 

H1Bs allow companies who are looking to leverage them to exploit employees who are trying to come to this country. 

This is not new. It’s been happening forever. And it happens in far more ways than just this. 

I’m not gonna beat Microsoft up for things the entire tech industry does.

PepinoPicante

[deleted]

I mean, that's really good question that should be asked. Employers cannot sponsor green cards after layoffs, but H-1B should also be considered on pause after layoffs.


“Microsoft, $MSFT, has requested 6,327 H-1B visas, mostly from India, in Washington, per Amanda Goodall.

That same month, it laid off 2,300 workers in the state.”

danrokk

It's insane how much these companies are abusing H-1B's as someone who works in tech locally here, you guys have NO idea just how bad it is lmao

VanillaMystery

I work in tech. Articles like this are a pressing reminder of why I will *never* work for the big tech firms. They turn and burn you and have zero institutional loyalty. Smaller firms pay less, but often have a greater quality of life and don’t dick you around. 

SocraticLogic

Redmond is literally little India based on my time working in hospitality there 😂

sonofalando

As a former leader of a large group in tech, one of the above post nails the unspoken benefits of workers in Visa’s and mostly from India. Firstly, many of them are very nice people, I have friends that are part of a social circle and I worked for an Indian manager previously who treated me very well.

What I witness is when an M2/M3 manager from the same country starts hiring, there is a bias to bring others along with them. Those people that are hired on a visa then feel loyalty to the leader and will do anything to stay in favor - especially early career. The work culture is essential imported and takes hold in the team. There is a difference in cultures on how you are treated as “a boss” and it accepted that working 50-70hrs /wk is part of job. Being respected as “a boss” is seen as success/power. Also, it is less cognitive load having a team from same culture. I will say having DE&amp;I goals hamper the formation of culturally heterogeneous teams.

I will also say our education system in America is way behind. When I had job openings, the number of qualified applicants from US is ~30%. For those with strong right leaning politics, the answer is simple, stop immigration, but unfortunately the US is not generating enough STEM graduates to be competitive. By stopping immigration that work is just moved to other countries, supporting their economy, and weaken the US.

Regarding Visas requests after layoffs may be a way to force companies to have more robust plans to redeploy/retrain workers, however there are too many other ways to get around it in the US. We are largely employment at will, which technically means an employer can terminate you tomorrow without cause the same way you can show up tomorrow and quit with no expectation of benefits. Companies don’t want to have that reputation of cutting people off that hurts ability to recruit people. If government enacts unfriendly employment laws making it difficult for companies, then you lose to less strict countries. It is a series of complicated checks and balances.

blackbyte89

I work at a Canadian Microsoft office. My team has 3 Canadian born employees out of 12. The rest arrived on visas, got pr, and eventually became Canadian. Out of the 12, 9 are now Canadian. They're originally from Europe, South America, and Asia. 

I know rules are more stringent around citizenship in the USA, but the temporary foreign workers are only one part of the story. If you look at the picture as a whole, it is a much more drastic scenario.

WhichJuice

I worked at Microsoft for years. I once applied for a job internally and it was filled with an H1-B visa. Took them almost six months to bring the guy in. I also saw soooooo many H1-B visa holders brought in, like train cars of them. And honestly most of them were not necessary. 

Bringing people in from overseas lowers wages and increases competition in high tech. It's really gross. 🤮 

Left and started my own business and never looked back. I learned a lot there, but it was a really unhealthy working environment. They even tried to get me come back a couple times, but once I realized I could make more money and not out up with their constant bullshit, there was no returning.

Suzzie_sunshine

This has been happening for years. My entire building at work is Indian men and women here on visas. It was not like that 10 years ago. 

Amazing people for the most part, but they are being taken advantage of by the companies. The company holds the visa, not the person working. So they don’t move around much, and they work for 60% of what a domestic worker would work for.

PissyMillennial

Microsoft has a huge Indian slant, but what qualifies as abusing H1Bs? If a firm hires person A who's local and Person B who's H1B, they get paid the same depending on how they do in the interviews. This is obviously not true for contractors, that's shits bad pay and worse skills.

I agree with the point that they should hire citizens first, but when we talk about this stuff we assume that all the people laid off are citizens while MS replaces them with H1Bs, which is just not true

datanomnom

I have a slightly different take than the discussion here. So please be kind.

Most of the H-1B requests are for employees already working at Microsoft that are either on a L-1 visa or OPT after their studies, or are simply renewing their existing H-1B visa. They're not replacing anyone, they're already working at Microsoft. They're not paid less than the "American employees" (salaries are not decided by your immigration status), so the whole reasoning of "saving money with lower paid immigrants" goes down the drain. In fact, given the high talent bar for entry for immigrants, they're likely paid more than local workers. Considering all the other immigration costs a company bears to keep them, makes them even more expensive. The real reason to still keep them is it's hard to find talented AND hard working people otherwise.

Now coming to layoffs, nobody's going around a company hunting for "American employees to fire". Layoffs are strategic in areas where the company needs to cut investments. Many people who got laid off are immigrants and are currently struggling.

Immigrants constitute nearly only 6-7% of the Microsoft US workforce, so obviously when you have a mass layoff like that it'd be the case that out of every 1000 people laid off, 930-940 were American people and it'd seem like local workers are getting affected highly, but in reality the impact is only proportionate to the composition of the work force.

ajsharm144

They're talking our jerbs!

Heh...remember when everyone was making fun of blue collar Midwesterners for saying that?

OsvuldMandius

All these articles are assuming H1B employees are not part of those getting laid off. The real cost cutting is not H1B employees, who are paid pretty much the same as citizens. It is the work being moved to India/EU dev centers where cost of labor is much cheaper.

TheDoethrak

What's worse is this, its not just tech roles, its entire HR teams filled with the wives of those h1b employees. Its ridiculous nobody is talking about this.
"Oh yes, we need foreign devs with nepotistic behavior, because there is no foreign talent to do that..." you can sort of believe that narrative because people still think tech == smart (lol).
How do you explain armies of HR workers, and entire recruiting teams being indian. Nobody local can do that in the US? 
They are ruining the system, exactly like a virus does to a vulnerable program.

StripOfMobius

Any source on wage difference between H1B and local hires?

Visual_Collar_8893

Microsoft doesn't pay low wages to H1B visa developers in the US. 

Median salary in 2025 for H1B's at Microsoft is $169,000.

Pygmy_Nuthatch

They are  not bringing in middle managers with h1-b.  Talent wins out.

culebracut

On a related topic -- A word of warning to tech employees continuing to push for WFH -- its just as easy to work from an apartment in Mumbai as it is from an apartment in Ballard....plus pay and benefits cost about ~1/4th as much.

YMBFKM

I don't know if this is true or not, but I had read that in both India and China businesses have cropped up that specialize in training people that have applied, or are going to apply, for H-1B visas so they can pass interviews/background checks, even if they aren't actually qualified for the job they are applying for.

mechanicalhorizon

Some-btc-name

Fair-Doughnut3000

Soon Seattle is going to be called Newest Delhi!

FaceKey

H1-b workers are preferable to US workers because they are more easily exploited. Full stop. That's it.


The law says they have to be paid at an equivalent rate, but they have far less ability to leave their role and feel far more pressure to perform. They aren't taking vacation, they are working longer hours, they don't complain.

QuirkyFail5440

To replace you. Kabir will lick boots at Microsoft and do whatever he's told. He doesn't care about you, this state, or who he screws over for money.

HeftyIntroduction264

These comments misunderstand H1B.

If you deny H1Bs you don't help an American get a job and raise wages.

Our company and others just hires the foreigner in Canada or India and the US gets ZERO TAXES instead of $100,000+ in taxes.


You ARE competing on a global platform, we hire thousands of Indians in India in part because H1Bs are limited. US can't stop this. 

The real question is can we relocate talent here and have them build in America and contribute within America. We should try to drain all the talent from the rest of the world.

michaelsmith0

It’s not just the lower wage part. H1B workers are slaves to the visa. They can pay them less and chain them to the company.

kungfu1

Hmm, I wonder who the CEO of Microsoft is right now.

*looks it up*

Ah.

No_Argument_Here

If a company is laying off an American software engineer just to replace them with an H-1B worker doing the exact same job for cheaper, that’s definitely questionable.

But if a company is restructuring.. say, letting go of a marketing team because they no longer need those roles and separately hiring H-1B engineers or product managers, that’s not sketchy. That’s just standard business.

A lot of people are assuming the worst-case scenario without actual evidence.

Also, there’s this myth that H-1B workers get paid half or are treated like second-class employees. That might happen in some shady contracting firms, but it’s simply not true at top companies like Microsoft.

We need to pass a ballot initiative in Washington (and other states) that bans companies from laying off an employee who is being replaced by a lower-wage worker.  

I realize that is pro-worker, so it will never pass.  It should.  Maybe start with Seattle, then Washington?

No_Bee_4979

Immigration is always about cheap labor despite the propaganda 

disorderly

One-Hurry6840

That’s it! No more H1-Bs for any company that lays off American engineers!! We all know the H1B program is a joke - and I’m saying this as the child of naturalized American parents and having many friends on H1B and sympathetic for its workers

But we must prioritize our citizens over foreign workers (no offense to Indian engineers but we have a financial crisis going on in tech and thousands of very competent US engineers have been laid off and desperate )  

H1s exploit foreign engineers and treat them like indentured workers and then betray US born engineers because we cannot compete on price  - after all, Microsoft is an American company not an Indian one, isn’t it?

Forsaken-Promise-269

I'm sick and tired of corporation sponsored mass immigration. The job market is already bad. On top of the housing market. All these people need a place to live too and the 20 and 30 somethings that were born here are getting screwed from multiple fronts

WaffleCopter68

They don’t want H1Bs necessarily, they want to outsource to lower wage countries.

Heavy-Abbreviations

Legally, If I had my way, US based companies would be required to layoff H1Bs before FTEs.  That, or more stringent rules around approving H1Bs after proof that the role really cannot be sourced from Citizens/Green Cards.

KG7DHL

No more H-1B's They were an excuse to hire anyone but Americans anyway.

raelelectricrazor232

The government shouldn’t allow them to have all these workers. Microsoft is a shitty company.

LeatherBlock5845

To be fair isn't this the same thing as people in Seattle are demanding and protesting over? -  "Food prices will increase if immigrants are sent home"....well well well!

Cultural_Plankton661

The 4,725 figure includes Renewals/Extensions and New applications, they use the same form and are issued a new Visa at the US Embassy of their home country. So let's just say they have 14k temporary workers in the US. That only accounts for 6% of their total workforce.

bustinjieb3r

Indians ruined the job market for everyone

There sure are a lot of CEOs who seem to have forgotten what happened to one of their own back in December.

baronvonjohn

Recent controversy surrounds Microsoft's decision to lay off 9,000 American workers while simultaneously seeking H-1B visas for foreign workers.

Microsoft Layoffs and H-1B Visa Controversy

Why This Matters

Public Sentiment Summary

Highlighted Comments

Parties Involved

What the people want