US suspends Microsoft, Adobe and six IT outsourcers from the PERM green-card program, October 8, 2026

The US Labor Department suspended Microsoft, Adobe and six IT outsourcing companies from the PERM program on Thursday, October 8, 2026, halting the labor certifications their foreign employees need for most employment-based green cards. Vice President JD Vance announced the step with Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, and the other companies named were Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini.

Vance's remarks on Microsoft reached the MoveSurge news feed at 10:22:25 ET. Microsoft traded at $530.33 just before, at $530.71 a minute later, up 0.07%, at $530.20 ten minutes later, a 0.02% dip, and at $531.05 after fifteen minutes, up 0.14%. It closed at $522.61, down 1.35%, on a day the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.25% after a report on OpenAI's revenue, while Adobe, Cognizant and Infosys closed higher.

What the suspension covers

PERM is the labor certification an employer must obtain before sponsoring most foreign workers for an employment-based green card, by showing the Labor Department that no qualified US worker is available for the job. Under the suspension the department will not accept new PERM applications from the eight companies and has stopped processing cases already filed while its investigations continue. H-1B visas are not suspended, so employees working at these companies on an H-1B can stay in their jobs, while their applications for permanent residence wait.

The action widens an approach the department first used a month earlier. On September 8 it suspended PERM filings by Cognizant and by Cloudera, the latter for 180 days, as part of a visa-fraud investigation.

The figures Vance cited for Microsoft

Vance said an investigation found that Microsoft laid off about 6,000 American workers last year while receiving about 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green-card certifications, and told the company it had to hire American workers. These are the government's figures; the comparison counts visas granted against layoffs over the same period and does not show whether the workers did the same jobs.

How the named companies' shares traded

Microsoft's one-minute and ten-minute readings after Vance's remarks were both within 0.1% of its starting price. Adobe was little changed in the minute after Vance named it at 10:53:01 ET and closed up 3.56%. Accenture, which was not on the list, rose 5.96%, more than any of the named companies that trade in New York.