One of the most popular brands in the gaming industry, XBOX, which is owned by technology giant Microsoft, is getting hammered from every angle after mass employee layoffs happened right after the company was approved for thousands of foreign worker visas. Microsoft announced that a total of 4,800 individuals from its company and 1,600 from the XBOX division, which makes gaming consoles, would be booted from their positions.
However, what’s making folks blow steam out of their ears is that Microsoft has been approved to hire a total of 2,273 employer-sponsored, non-immigrant workers under the H-1B visa program, according to information revealed by the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS). Online critics say that American jobs are being unfairly passed along to foreign workers as a means to reduce labor costs.
“A great way to fix this is to throw anyone doing this in prison,” one user on X posted. “Fire Americans to replace with thousands of visa workers? Straight to jail, and assets seized. This story has been told countless times. Fire American staff and hire foreigners. Over and over.” Another individual blamed the government for approving the visas.
“It is the fault of our Government [sic] for approving the H-1Bs,” another social media user complained, according to a report from the New York Post. “Our Government [sic] has sold us out of jobs at home and those being moved to other countries.” Someone else said the H-1B program is “industrial scale job theft from Americans.”
The report then went on to reveal that Microsoft is the sixth-largest beneficiary of the H-1B visa program, which is stuffed with workers from India. The company still has a staggering number of H-1B visa applications still pending. The company has workers all over the world, but the vast majority of them work in the U.S.
“These decisions are based on business need, not visa status. H-1B employees were also impacted by job eliminations in the U.S.,” a Microsoft spokesperson went on to tell Fox News Digital when it reached out for comment on the layoffs. One lawmaker is so miffed by the whole thing that he’s called for the program to be brought to an end.
“This is INSANE. LEGAL immigration is a major problem. These companies, especially big tech, are abusing these immigration programs to replace American workers with foreign workers,” Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV) went on to say about H-1B visas, going on to add, “No more. It’s long past time to end the H-1B scam.”
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Asha Sharma, CEO of XBOX, said the layoffs were to help improve the company’s financial health. “Our business today is not healthy,” Sharma said in a memo. “We are operating at margins that are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses.” She then said that her strategy is to “reset” the gaming company.
Online critics ripped Sharma, claiming that her Indian heritage played a huge role in firing American workers, given the high percentage of H-1B employees from India. Sharma was born in the state of Wisconsin. Vice President JD Vance stated on November 3 that a large-scale investigation into H-1B visa fraud is currently underway.
“Today, I’m proud to announce that the federal Department of Labor has started dozens of subpoenas and investigations into foreign fraudsters who are trying to take advantage of the H-1B visa program,” he explained during a press conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. “American jobs ought to go to American workers and not foreign fraudsters and the Department of Labor is fighting back against it.”
Featured Image: screenshot from embedded video