The Sorry State of U.S. Tech Jobs: Who is to Blame?

Dear All:

On April 1, the U.S. Center for Immigration Services stopped accepting fiscal year 2025 H-1B visa applications and announced that 120,603 workers had been selected to fill white-collar jobs. Shocking news considering the tech sector is conducting massive layoffs.

Oddly, the biggest layoffs are from the H-1B visa’s top sponsors. In the last year and a half Amazon fired 27,840 workers and filed more H-1B visa applications than any other company. Close behind are Google and Meta, which laid off 13,372 and 21,000 workers.

According to tech tracker layoffs.fyi, in the last two years, 609,390 workers have been dismissed and our tech sector activists tell us employers are firing Americans while doing their best to protect H-1B visa workers awaiting green cards.

What many don’t realize is there are no laws requiring an employer to prove they couldn’t find a qualified American to fill a role in which they prefer to hire an H-1B visa holder. This changes, though, once an H-1B visa worker is sponsored for an employment based green card and authorized to work and live permanently in the U.S.

Then, a labor certification test referred to as PERM must be conducted, and proof there are no qualified American applicants must be shown. Due largely to cost and its cumbersome process, the PERM is the last barrier protecting U.S, workers from being displaced by foreigners.

Tragically, the Biden administration is working to rid the PERM requirement and corporations are employing a litany of deceptive practices to bypass it.

 Meta and Apple were recently found guilty of circumventing PERM and fined $14 and $15 million, respectively. Corporate schemes include instructing Americans to apply for jobs through obscure websites that are curated by immigration law firms whose goal is to “not” find qualified workers.

On May 13th, the window to submit comments for a “rule change” effectively abolishing the PERM process closed. Thankfully, thousands of you and several organizations responded to our call to submit comments, and following our social media campaign, site comments spiked to over 1,900. Good going, Tech Workers!   

We’re still deeply engaged in our lawsuit against more than 40 companies that conspired to discriminate against American workers vis-a-vis the now defunct Chicago H-1B Connect job board and we’ll post our progress, next month. In June, our annual giving drive begins and we hope you’ll donate what you can to support our defense of American workers. 

In solidarity,

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What tech labor shortage?

Students were told a myth about the great shortage of computer workers and they responded by flocking to computer science programs.

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