The U.S. Department of Labor announced the suspension of participation of eight major IT companies in the Permanent Labor Certification Program. These firms are Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, Capgemini, Microsoft, and Adobe.
This was reported on Thursday. The statement was made by U.S. Secretary of Labor Kit Sondeling in the presence of Vice President J. D. Vance, who heads the U.S. Task Force to Combat Fraud.
Sondeling stated: 'I hereby suspend the participation of some of the largest global IT outsourcing firms in the Permanent Labor Certification Program, namely Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini.' He added that the Department of Labor is also suspending cooperation with Microsoft and Adobe under this program.
The Secretary emphasized that the department will no longer accept new applications or review pending requests for permanent labor certification related to these companies. According to Sondeling, only these companies have applied for nearly three million foreign workers since 2009.
He also noted that these firms have received over 230,000 H-1B visas and more than 100,000 permanent labor certifications, which, in Sondeling's opinion, led to hundreds of thousands of jobs being filled by foreign workers instead of American ones.