Labor Department says it suspended Microsoft and Adobe from PERM program
The department says the two companies join a list of large IT sourcing firms barred from the permanent labor certification process.
Published
PERM allows companies to sponsor foreign workers for permanent jobs, but only after they show they tried and failed to find American workers for the role, according to the Washington Times.
The department has used this tool before. Its inspector general, Anthony D'Esposito, suspended PERM filings for Cognizant and Cloudera on September 8 amid a fraud investigation, according to NRI Pulse. Cloudera had already had its PERM applications suspended for 180 days in May, a penalty that could be extended depending on the outcome of a Justice Department probe, according to HR Dive. Those actions were described as part of a crackdown coordinated with the White House Fraud Task Force on the H-1B and PERM programs, according to consultadd.com. Cognizant's own H-1B approvals have fallen sharply, to 3,510 as of June 30 from 9,413 in 2020, according to SSBCrack News.
Losing PERM access would complicate hiring pipelines for specialized technical roles at both companies just as they race to scale AI products, including Adobe's push into agentic tools and Microsoft's expansion of Copilot. It would also add to a list of non-product pressures on Microsoft, which is already working through job cuts and reorganizations across Xbox and other units, and which is contending with news-outlet lawsuits over White House access. Taken together, the actions widen the set of regulatory and legal risks investors have to track for two of the largest technology employers in the country, compliance risk layered on top of the visa program suspension referenced days earlier.