Oracle and Amazon File Thousands of H-1B Visa Petitions Amid Layoffs

Oracle and Amazon have filed thousands of H-1B visa petitions to bring foreign workers into the United States, even as both technology giants have carried out significant rounds of layoffs affecting tens of thousands of American employees, according to federal immigration data reviewed by advocacy groups tracking workforce trends.

The filings, submitted during the most recent H-1B application cycle, reveal that Oracle submitted petitions for several thousand foreign nationals for roles primarily in software engineering, cloud infrastructure, and database management. Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing company, filed an even larger tranche of petitions, continuing a years-long pattern of relying heavily on the visa programme to staff its rapidly expanding technical divisions.

The H-1B programme, created by the United States Congress in 1990, allows American employers to temporarily hire foreign nationals in specialty occupations requiring at least a bachelor's degree or equivalent. Critics argue the programme is routinely exploited to replace domestic workers with cheaper overseas talent, while proponents maintain it fills genuine gaps in the American technology labour pipeline that domestic graduates cannot meet at current scale.

The disclosure arrives at a politically charged moment. Oracle announced layoffs affecting thousands of employees across multiple business units over the past eighteen months, as the company pivoted its workforce toward artificial intelligence and cloud services. Amazon similarly conducted one of the largest mass redundancy programmes in its corporate history in 2023 and 2024, cutting more than 27,000 positions across retail, human resources, and technology divisions.

Labour advocates and several members of the United States Congress have called on the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labour to tighten oversight of the H-1B system, arguing that simultaneous layoffs and mass visa filings represent a fundamental breach of the programme's original intent.

For Gulf investors, the controversy carries direct financial relevance. Qatar Investment Authority holds significant stakes in American technology infrastructure through its diversified global portfolio, and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund have both deepened their exposure to US cloud and artificial intelligence companies in recent years. Prolonged political scrutiny of the H-1B system could affect the pace of expansion at major technology firms that Gulf sovereign wealth funds count among their most strategically important holdings.

The Trump administration, which returned to power in January 2025 with an explicit mandate to prioritise American workers, has so far maintained the H-1B programme largely intact despite pressure from economic nationalist factions within its coalition, reflecting the influence of technology industry donors who argue the visas are indispensable to American competitiveness in artificial intelligence and semiconductor development.