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Vice President, JD Vance has criticized Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) and other tech giants for laying off American workers while heavily depending on immigrant labor through the H-1B visa program.
What Happened: Speaking at a bipartisan event hosted by the Hill and Valley Forum on Wednesday, Vance questioned the ethical and economic justification of companies conducting mass layoffs while simultaneously increasing applications for employment-based visas.
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“You see some big tech companies where they’ll lay off 9,000 workers, and then they’ll apply for a bunch of overseas visas. And I sort of wonder; that doesn’t totally make sense to me,” Vance said.
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While he did not specifically name Microsoft at first, he later agreed when the host mentioned it and said that he read about their mass layoffs.
He quoted the president, emphasizing the need for the best and brightest to make America their home and build great companies, but criticized companies that lay off thousands of American workers and then claim they can’t find workers in America.
“That displacement and that math worries me a bit….I don’t want companies to fire 9,000 American workers and then to go and say, ‘We can’t find workers here in America.’ That’s a bullshit story,” said Vance.
Meanwhile, Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, addressed the recent job cuts in a memo to employees on Thursday. ” I want to speak to what’s been weighing heavily on me, and what I know many of you are thinking about: the recent job eliminations. These decisions are among the most difficult we have to make.”
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Why It Matters: Microsoft’s layoffs have been a point of contention. The company’s second round of downsizing in 2025 affected less than 4% of its workforce, or 9,000 workers. The company attributed the layoffs to cost control measures affecting various teams, geographies, and tenures.
Notably, the Nadella-led company has fired over 15,000 people until now in 2025, as per CNBC.
Despite these layoffs, Microsoft has been actively expanding its artificial intelligence team, reportedly hiring around two dozen employees from Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) DeepMind. This expansion has raised questions about the company’s strategic decisions amid the layoffs.
