Senators: Amazon Used AI Layoffs to Hire Cheaper H1-B Workers
▼ Summary
– Senators are investigating major tech companies for allegedly filing thousands of H-1B visa petitions while conducting mass layoffs of American employees.
– Letters were sent to Amazon, Meta, Apple, Google, and Microsoft requesting data on their hiring practices and salary differences between H-1B and American workers.
– Senator Grassley also requested that the Department of Homeland Security stop issuing work authorizations to student visa holders, citing espionage risks and harm to American graduates.
– The senators emphasized that the unemployment rate in the U.S. tech sector is significantly higher than the overall national jobless rate.
– Amazon is under particular scrutiny for sponsoring 14,000 H-1B visas in 2024 after laying off tens of thousands of workers, which it attributed to adopting AI tools.
A bipartisan group of US senators is pressing major technology companies for transparency, alleging they have pursued thousands of H-1B skilled labor visas shortly after implementing significant layoffs of American workers. Letters dispatched to industry giants including Amazon, Meta, Apple, Google, and Microsoft seek detailed explanations about recruitment strategies and potential disparities in compensation and benefits between US employees and foreign visa holders.
The inquiry, led by Senators Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, and Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, follows a separate communication from Grassley to the Department of Homeland Security. In that letter, he urged DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to halt the issuance of work authorizations to student visa holders, citing concerns over potential technological espionage and negative effects on employment for American college graduates. Grassley further challenged the legal basis for these authorizations if DHS chooses to continue them, suggesting the practice may conflict with laws designed to reserve visas for specialized talent not available domestically.
A central point in the senators’ argument is that the current unemployment level within America’s technology sector significantly exceeds the national average. They contend that the timing of widespread layoffs followed by substantial H-1B sponsorship raises serious questions about corporate priorities and compliance with visa regulations intended to protect the domestic workforce.
Amazon is under particular scrutiny in this investigation. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal citing US Citizenship and Immigration Services data, Amazon sponsored 14,000 H-1B visas in 2024, a figure that dwarfs the approximately 5,000 visas sponsored by each of its peers, Microsoft and Meta. The senators have pointedly alleged that after Amazon attributed the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs to the integration of generative AI tools, the company then hired over 10,000 foreign workers on H-1B visas in the following year. This sequence of events has fueled accusations that cost-cutting through AI-driven layoffs may have been used to facilitate the hiring of less expensive labor from abroad.
(Source: Ars Technica)
