A Newsweek study says that US corporations are sponsoring more H-1B visas than they did in past years, even though there have been a lot of layoffs lately. This information has made American job applicants, especially those in the computer industry, worried online. The research comes out at a time when people are angry about the H-1B visa system and the Trump administration is still pushing for harsher immigration rules.
Important Results from the Report
Newsweek says that the biggest year-over-year increases in H-1B visa sponsorships were recorded in a number of fields, with consulting, finance, and technology seeing the biggest boosts. Amazon was still the leading H-1B sponsor, with approvals going up from 9,257 in 2024 to 10,044 in 2025. Meta, Apple, and Microsoft were also named as corporations that are hiring more people from other countries.
Newsweek talked to Madeline Zavodny, an economics professor at the University of North Florida, who explained the tendency. “It’s not surprising that there is still a lot of demand for H-1B visas, even from some businesses that have said they are laying off workers,” she added. Zavodny said that corporations that are laying off people may just be looking for new skills that aren’t easy to find in the US workforce.
Experts say that the raw data seems to show a big gain in approvals for top businesses, but these numbers include visa extensions, transfers, and cap-exempt petitions, which makes it hard to see a direct rise in new foreign hiring.
What people are saying and arguing online
The story, which was recently shared on a Reddit community for American computer workers, got a quick and worried response. One person said, “This is bad,” and another said, “Sometimes it feels a little hopeless.”
A lot of people were upset by the thought that the US doesn’t have enough talented people, especially because there had been so many layoffs in the tech business recently. One user said, “I hate it when I read that there aren’t any good workers in the US to hire when 100,000 IT workers have been laid off…”The problem is that they just want the cheapest talent. The US has plenty of skill.
People have been arguing over the H-1B visa system for a long time. Supporters say that the program is necessary to bring in the best people from around the world and help the US economy grow. Some people, on the other hand, think it hurts American workers’ chances, especially when employers are laying people off and might be tempted to hire foreign labor for less money.