US Labor Department Halts PERM Processing at Microsoft, Adobe and Six Other Firms
The suspension blocks the labor certification step these companies need to sponsor green cards, and it lands on the same firms Vance singled out by name for what he described as replacing laid-off American workers with foreign hires.
Reporting from 1 source: GIGAZINE.
The Trump administration said on October 8, 2026 that the Department of Labor will not accept or process new PERM labor certification applications from eight companies: Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Capgemini. Vice President J.D. Vance announced the suspension at a White House press conference alongside Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling. Microsoft disputed the government's account of its foreign worker hiring.
The Department of Labor will stop accepting or processing new PERM applications from the eight named companies. PERM is the certification step a US employer must clear before sponsoring a foreign worker for permanent residency: the employer has to show through recruitment that no qualified American worker is available and that hiring abroad will not undercut wages or conditions. The measure does not touch the H-1B visa itself. Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling cited investigations by several federal agencies into Microsoft and Adobe as the reason. Microsoft answered the same day, saying 80 percent of the roughly 6,000 H-1B applications it filed in the previous fiscal year were for extending or changing the status of employees it already had, not new hires.
- Microsoft: Vance alleged it cut about 6,000 American employees in 2025 while obtaining 6,300 H-1B visas and roughly 3,000 green cards
- Adobe: named among the companies under investigation by multiple federal agencies
- Cognizant
- Infosys
- Tata Consultancy Services
- Wipro
- HCL Technologies
- Capgemini
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.