USCIS data shows Microsoft received 6,258 H-1B approvals in fiscal 2025, but two-thirds were for people already working at the company. That makes the visa total poor evidence, by itself, that Microsoft replaced the 6,000 workers it laid off in 2025 with new foreign hires. The available figures do not settle whether any laid-off employees were replaced.
What the visa count does—and does not—show
Vice President JD Vance pointed to Microsoft’s layoffs and H-1B approvals to argue that the company substituted foreign workers for Americans. The USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub supports one part of his account: Microsoft had more than 6,000 approvals in fiscal 2025. But an approval count is not a tally of new hires, because it also includes applications involving existing employees.
Microsoft said 80% of its H-1B applications were intended to extend or change the status of current staff, rather than bring in new people. The source material’s breakdown of approvals says two-thirds went to people already at the company. Those figures are not identical measures, but both caution against treating the total as a count of replacements.
Microsoft ranked behind Amazon and Meta
In fiscal 2025, Amazon recorded 19,178 H-1B approvals and Meta had 6,294, placing them ahead of Microsoft’s 6,258. Neither Amazon nor Meta was among the eight technology companies suspended from sponsoring workers for green cards. The comparison shows that a high H-1B approval total alone did not determine which companies faced the suspension.
Microsoft had previously sponsored more H-1B workers than Amazon, but Amazon moved ahead in 2017 and now receives about three times as many approvals. Amazon also brought in nearly four times as many H-1B workers new to the company as Microsoft did. That distinction between new arrivals and existing employees is central to judging whether visa filings indicate replacement hiring.
Green-card restrictions are separate from H-1B visas
The Trump administration announced Thursday that it had suspended eight technology companies from sponsoring foreign workers through the Labor Department’s PERM program. PERM is a route employers use to sponsor green-card applications, which can lead to permanent residency. The suspension does not apply to H-1B visas, which permit temporary work.
All eight suspended companies were among the top 50 H-1B sponsors in the United States, and most were IT services and consulting firms. Adobe was the smallest, ranking No. 45. The separate programs matter: a restriction on PERM sponsorship does not itself establish that a company’s H-1B approvals were new hires or that those hires took jobs from laid-off employees.
The layoff comparison remains unproven
Vance’s comparison sets Microsoft’s 6,000 layoffs in 2025 against its 6,258 H-1B approvals in fiscal 2025. The figures are close, but they describe different things: a workforce reduction and visa approvals, including applications for employees already at Microsoft. They cannot be read as a one-for-one record of workers dismissed and replaced.
The available material does not identify how many new Microsoft H-1B hires, if any, took positions left by laid-off employees. Microsoft has said the vast majority of its US employees are Americans, while the company employs more than 200,000 people worldwide. Those facts provide context on its workforce, but do not resolve the specific replacement allegation.
Broader scrutiny reaches beyond tech
The Thursday announcement also included an investigation into alleged J-1 visa fraud involving nine major American universities. That inquiry concerns a different visa category from both H-1B work permits and PERM green-card sponsorship. Its inclusion shows the administration’s scrutiny extended beyond the eight technology companies targeted by the sponsorship suspension.
For the Microsoft claim, the most useful evidence is therefore not the headline approval total alone, but the split between current employees and people newly joining the company. USCIS figures establish Microsoft’s place among major H-1B sponsors; they do not show that the company replaced its laid-off workers with foreign hires.
Takeaway: Microsoft’s 6,258 H-1B approvals do not prove replacement hiring; the available data leaves Vance’s central allegation unresolved.
References
- cnbc.com — “Vance says Microsoft replaced laid-off workers with foreign hires. See the data”
- finance.yahoo.com — “JD Vance slams Microsoft, says it swapped 6,000 laid-off Americans for ‘foreign indentured servants.’ Microsoft responds”
- BBC — “White House blocks Microsoft from foreign worker hiring program”
- The Seattle Times — “Microsoft pushes back on Vance’s H-1B visa claims”
- Fox Business — “Vance suspends Microsoft, others from foreign workers applying for green cards, accuses company of visa 'abuse”
