🦔While Oracle was sending 6am termination emails to between 20,000 and 30,000 employees this week, the company had filed roughly 3,126 H-1B petitions to hire foreign workers in fiscal years 2025 and 2026, including 436 filed this year alone. H-1B petitions are required when companies seek to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations like technology. Amazon, which has cut 30,000 corporate employees since October, filed 2,675 H-1B petitions over the same period. My Take The official justification for H-1B filings is that companies need specialized skills unavailable domestically. The honest explanation in most cases is cheaper labor. H-1B workers are often paid less than their American counterparts for equivalent roles and are tied to their employer through visa sponsorship, which limits their ability to negotiate or leave. Oracle didn't lay off 18% of its workforce because those people lacked skills. It laid them off to free up $8-10 billion in cash flow to service AI infrastructure debt. Filing hundreds of foreign worker petitions in the same period is a cost structure decision, and the people who got that 6am email and then saw these filings have every right to be angry about it. Hedgie🤗
