He says that Redmond shouldn’t ask for more visas when it fires so many people

Jul 21, 2014 09:05 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft last week announced that it was firing 18,000 people across the world following the acquisition of Nokia’s Devices and Services unit, trying to cope with the increasing headcount and reduce costs for its main divisions.

The news pretty much shocked everyone, not necessarily because it’s just another layoff announced by Microsoft, but due to the fact that it involves 18,000 people, more than anyone predicted before the announcement was made public.

US Senator Jeff Sessions said in a statement that Microsoft should no longer ask for more high-skill visas in the United States because it’s not really fair to press for STEM degrees when you are actually firing people in your country.

Here are some of the comments made by Sessions and published by TechCrunch:

“Microsoft confirmed it will cut up to 18,000 jobs over the next year, part of the tech titan’s efforts to streamline its business under a new CEO.

"That is a significant action. Indeed, Microsoft employs about 125,000 people, and they are laying off 18,000. The company laid off 5,000 in 2009. Yet their founder and former leader, Mr. Gates, says we have to have more and more people come into our country to take those kinds of jobs.

"It is pretty interesting, really. We need to be thinking about what it all means and ask ourselves: What is the situation today for American graduates of STEM degrees and technology degrees? Do we have enough? And do we need to have people come to our country to take those jobs? Or, indeed, do we not have a shortage of workers, and do we have difficulty of people finding jobs?”

And Mr. Sessions might have a point. Microsoft has always been one of the companies that pushed for more STEM degrees, explaining that it has lots of high-skill positions which cannot be filled due to shortage of workers in the United States.

However, the layoff isn’t only aimed at people living in the United States, but also at Nokia employees in Finland and workers of basically all Microsoft divisions, including Windows.

People familiar with the matter indicated that Microsoft was planning to fire some Windows testers and ask people remaining on board to learn new skills in order to obtain a more streamlined development process of new Windows versions. The company is yet to confirm this, but internal memos sent by executives seem to confirm that more employees are targeted by the layoff.