The US Department of Labor’s Frances Perkins Building in Washington, DC Credit: US Department of Labor (Shawn T Moore) / CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons (cropped) India’s foreign ministry has called US Vice President JD Vance’s description of foreign workers hired by Microsoft as “indentured servants” deeply offensive. Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal read out the ministry’s statement at its briefing in New Delhi on Friday. “Resorting to terminology that carries painful historical and colonial legacy connotations is deeply offensive,” Jaiswal said. On Thursday, Vance announced that the Labor Department was suspending eight companies from the PERM programme. PERM is usually the first step when an employer sponsors a foreign worker for a green card.
The eight are Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL and France’s Capgemini. Vance said Microsoft had replaced laid-off American workers with lower-paid foreign ones. Microsoft said most of its H-1B filings last year were for people already working there. Jaiswal said such descriptions were unwarranted.
They ignore that Indian professionals in the US are highly educated and skilled contributors to its economy, he said. What India says changes The ministry said PERM is distinct from the H-1B visa programme. The suspension does not by itself affect the validity of H-1B visas, it said, or the status of visa holders and their families. It could affect the green card process for eligible employees of the eight companies. “The steps announced by the US do not advance the shared ambitions of both countries,” Jaiswal said.
He said India continues to follow developments. The ministry added that talent mobility helps both economies, including US companies and their shareholders. Who is most exposed Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said the department will not accept new PERM applications involving the eight or process pending ones. Vance said the suspension would last “as long as it needs to”.
Microsoft is the biggest user of PERM, according to a GeekWire analysis of Labor Department data. The department ruled on 3,161 of its applications in the fiscal year to September 2025, more than for any other employer. It ruled on 39 from Amazon and three from Google. Across all employers, the department certified nearly 140,000 PERM applications in fiscal 2025, Axios reported.
About 30% were for software developers, computer systems analysts and data scientists. The workers most exposed are H-1B holders near the visa’s six-year limit, immigration lawyers told Business Insider. Progress towards a green card is what lets many of them extend their stay. “Most people will either be able to wait it out or have time to switch jobs,” said Loren Locke, a lawyer in Atlanta. Lawyers expect court challenges Federal law lets the Labor Department suspend an employer on its own for only 180 days, Ted Chiappari of Duane Morris told Business Insider.
After an investigation, it can bar an employer for up to three years. Kripa Upadhyay of the Seattle firm Buchalter said she expected lawsuits against the PERM suspension to start by next week. The suspension follows a proposed $103,265 fee on new H-1B visas. In August, OpenAI agreed to a $3.2m US settlement over how it advertised PERM jobs.
Indian IT shares rose Microsoft shares fell about 1% on Thursday and Adobe’s rose nearly 4%, Axios reported. In Mumbai on Friday, Indian IT stocks rose. By late morning, TCS was up 5.5%, Wipro 3.2%, HCL 2.9% and Infosys 2.7%, IIFL reported. TCS had reported its quarterly results the day before.
India’s IT industry body Nasscom said Indian tech companies in the US had significantly reduced their use of H-1B visas, Reuters reported. It said relatively few of their workers seek green cards through PERM.
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