Microsoft slammed for thousands of layoffs while demanding increase in immigration

About 7,800 Microsoft employees are in line to be fired, according to a company announcement last Wednesday. Most workers are from the seemingly failing mobile phone business, while Microsfot is said to fire a majority of Nokia's remaining employees ever since acquisition. The announcement was slammed by a legislator who noted that the company has been rigorously lobbying for the increase of immigration through H1-B visas.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - "Microsoft has shed roughly 1/5th of its workforce in the past couple years. And yet Microsoft, perhaps more than any other major U.S. company, has claimed it suffers from a shortage of capable American workers and must therefore import more H-1B foreign guest workers," said Alabama's Sen. Jeff Sessions (R) through statement sent to The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The giant tech company eliminated about 18,000 employees last year, emphasizing that Microsoft was falsifying their claims on needing more immigrant workers to fill in their workforce according to Sen. Sessions. Sessions is known as one of the top Republican critics of immigration reform, which Microsoft campaigned intensely for.

The company endorsed the I-Squared Act of 2005, tripling the number of immigrants with temporary work visas. Microsoft is also one of the three biggest employers of H1-B holders. Yet, with the massive firings from the company, Sen. Sessions claims that Microsoft is just taking advantage of cheaper labors from immigrants, despite the number of skilled American workers in the country.

"As Microsoft's layoffs show, there is a surplus-not a shortage-of skilled, talented, and qualified Americans seeking [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] STEM employment," he told the outlet. The legislator emphasized that more than 11 million American STEM degree holders are unemployed, disproving the company's claim that immigration is necessary to their line.

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