Labor Department Suspends Microsoft, Adobe and IT Outsourcers From PERM Green-Card Program

The U.S. Department of Labor said Thursday it is suspending Microsoft and Adobe from its Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) program and will no longer accept or process new applications from a group of companies that also includes Cognizant, Infosys, Capgemini, Tata, Wipro and HCL, according to CNBC. Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the move, which blocks the named employers from using the PERM pathway to sponsor H-1B visa holders for permanent residency.

What the Labor Department announced

Sonderling said the suspension applies to new PERM applications for the named firms, but the available reporting does not specify how long the suspension will last, the formal Labor Department order or legal authority behind it, or how many pending applications at each company are affected, per CNBC's account of the announcement. Seeking Alpha described the practical effect as preventing Microsoft and the other named companies from using H-1B visa holders to apply for permanent residency, which it said could disrupt workforce planning, though no cost figures or staffing guidance were disclosed in either report.

Sonderling's rationale and the scale of past filings

Sonderling said Adobe and Microsoft were also suspended "due to multiple active federal investigations," according to CNBC, which reported no further detail on those probes. Citing the named firms collectively, Sonderling said that "since 2009, just these companies alone have requested almost 3 million foreign workers" and that "they've received over 230,000 H-1B visas approvals and over 100,000 permanent labor certifications," which he characterized as "hundreds of thousands of jobs that were taken from American workers," per CNBC.

Vance's criticism and Microsoft's response

Vice President JD Vance criticized Microsoft specifically, pointing to the firm's 6,000 layoffs in 2025 and claiming the company "replaced" those workers with people on H-1B visas, CNBC reported. Vance framed the move as conditional, saying the administration would "continue to support Microsoft and have a great relationship with Microsoft, but we're also going to deny them the ability to apply for these permanent residencies until they show that they are going to get serious about putting American workers first." He also drew a distinction between prominent immigrant executives and broader visa use, saying, "It's one thing if you want to bring in a person like Elon Musk," and adding that most Americans support founders who "come in and build something great in the United States of America," according to CNBC.

Microsoft defended its hiring practices in a statement on Thursday, saying "the vast majority of Microsoft employees in the United States are Americans" and that "of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa applications we submitted in the last fiscal year, 80% percent were to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees," CNBC reported. The company said petitions were filed only for workers "who meet the rigorous standards of this visa category" and that its wages for H-1B workers were among the highest of all H-1B filings. CNBC said it had reached out to Adobe for comment; no response from Adobe, Infosys or the other named outsourcing firms appears in the available reporting.

Filing volumes and the same-day medal ceremony

On petition volumes, CNBC cited 2026 data from Levels.fyi showing Amazon with the highest number of H-1B petitions at 35,426 workers, followed by Cognizant and EY, with Microsoft a close fourth at 21,706 petitions and a median base salary of $180,710. That is a gap of 13,720 petitions (35,426 - 21,706), or about 63.2% more petitions at Amazon than at Microsoft ((35,426 - 21,706) / 21,706 x 100). Interpretation: the comparison is arithmetic only and implies no causal link, but it indicates that the suspended group includes some, though not all, of the largest H-1B filers in the Levels.fyi data — Amazon and EY are not among the companies CNBC listed as suspended.

CNBC noted the announcement was made at the same summit where President Donald Trump was set to award the National Medal of Science to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su, each of whom immigrated to the U.S.

Bottom Line

Per CNBC and Seeking Alpha, the Labor Department has closed the PERM pathway to new filings from Microsoft, Adobe and six large IT services firms, a step Seeking Alpha said could disrupt workforce planning by preventing those employers from sponsoring H-1B holders for permanent residency. The available reporting does not state how long the suspension lasts, the specific order or legal authority invoked, or how many pending applications are affected at each employer, so the operational and financial impact on the named companies remains undisclosed.