After years of seemingly boundless expansion, the U.S. tech industry has hit a wall. Companies are in cash preservation mode, leading to thousands of job cuts a month and a surge of layoffs in November.
While the sudden loss of a paycheck can be devastating for anyone, especially during the holiday season, the recent wave of reductions is having an outsized impact on skilled workers who are living in the U.S. on temporary visas and are at risk of being sent home if they can’t secure a new job in short order.
Tech companies are among the employers with the most approvals for H-1B visas, which are granted to people in specialty occupations that often require a college degree and extra training. Silicon Valley has for years leaned on temporary visas issued by the government to employ thousands of foreign workers in technical fields such as engineering, biotech and computer science. That’s a big reason tech companies have beenoutspoken in their defense of immigrants’ rights.
Workers on temporary visas often have 60 to 90 days to find a new gig so they can avoid being deported.
“It’s this amazing talent pool that the U.S. is fortunate to attract, and they’re always living on the edge,” said Sophie Alcorn, an immigration lawyer based in Mountain View, California, who specializes in securing visas for tech workers. “Many of them up are up against this 60-day grace period deadline. They have a chance to find a new job to sponsor them, and if they can’t do that, they have to leave the U.S. So it’s a stressful time for everybody.”
The already grim situation worsened in November, when Meta, Amazon, Twitter, Lyft, Salesforce, HP and DoorDash announced significant cuts to their workforces. More than 50,000 tech workers were let go from their jobs in November, according to data collected by the website Layoffs.fyi.
Amazon gave staffers who were laid off 60 days to search for a new role inside the company, after which they’d be offered severance, according to a former Amazon Web Services employee who lost his job. The person spoke to CNBC on the condition of anonymity.
In fiscal 2021, Amazon had the most approved petitions for H-1B visas, with 6,182, according to a National Foundation for American Policy review of U.S. immigration data. Google, IBM and Microsoft also ranked near the top of the list.
The former AWS employee has been in the country for two years on student and employment visas. He said he was unexpectedly laid off at the beginning of November, just months after joining the company as an engineer. Despite Amazon informing him that he had 60 days to find another position internally, the person said his manager advised him to apply for jobs elsewhere due the company’s pullback in hiring. Amazon said in November it’s pausing hiring for its corporate workforce.
An Amazon spokesperson didn’t provide a comment beyond what CEO Andy Jassy said last month, when he told those affected by the layoffs that the company would help them find new roles.
Companies generally aren’t specifying what percentage of the people being laid off are on visas. A search for “layoffs H1B” on LinkedIn surfaces a stream of posts from workers who recently lost their jobs and are expressing concern about the 60-day unemployment window. Visa holders have been sharing resources on Discord servers, the anonymous professional network Blind and in WhatsApp groups, the former AWS employee said.
It had already been a frenetic few years for foreign workers in the U.S. well before surging inflation and concerns of a recession sparked the latest round of job cuts.
The Trump administration’s hostile posture toward immigration put the H-1B program at risk. As president in 2020, Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending work visas, including those with H-1B status, claiming they hurt employment prospects for Americans. The move drew a strong rebuke from tech executives, who said the program serves as a pipeline for talented individuals and strengthens American companies. President Joe Biden allowed the Trump-era ban to expire last year.
Whatever relief the Biden presidency provided is of limited value to those who are now jobless. An engineer who was recently laid off by gene-sequencing technology company Illumina said he hoped his employer would sponsor his transfer to an H-1B visa. He’s here on a different visa, known as Optional Practical Training (OPT), which allows graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to work in the U.S. for up to three years after graduation.
The former Illumina employee, who spoke on condition that he not be named, not only has to find a new job within 90 days from the layoff date, but his OPT visa expires in August. Any company that hires him must be willing to sponsor his visa transfer and pay the related fees. He’s considering going back to school in order to extend his stay in the U.S., but he’s anxious about taking on student loans.
Illumina said in November it was cutting about 5% of its global workforce. A company spokesperson told CNBC that less than 10% of impacted employees were here on H-1B or related visas.
“We are engaging with each employee individually so that they understand the impact to their employment eligibility and options to remain in the U.S.,” the spokesperson said by email. “We are working to review each and every situation to ensure great care for those impacted, and to ensure compliance with immigration law.”
The ex-employee said he had dreams of working for Illumina, planting roots in the U.S. and buying a house. Now, he said, he’s just trying to find a way to stay in the country without going deep into debt. In just a matter of months, it’s “like a night and day difference,” he said.
A slogan related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) is displayed on a screen in Intel pavilion, during the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 16, 2024.
Denis Balibouse | Reuters
Big Tech is doubling down on investing billions in India, drawn by its abundance of resources for building data centers, a large talent and digital user pool, and market opportunity.
In under 24 hours, Microsoft and Amazon pledged more than $50 billion toward India’s cloud and AI infrastructure, while Intel on Monday announced plans to make chips in the country to capitalize on its growing PC demand and speedy AI adoption.
While India trails the U.S. and China in the race to develop a native AI foundational model, and lacks a large domestic AI infrastructure company, it wants to leverage its expertise in the information technology sector to create and deploy AI applications at enterprise level, also offering Big Tech companies a huge opportunity.
Having a model or computing is not enough for any enterprise to use AI effectively, and it requires companies making application layer and a large talent pool to deploy them, S. Krishnan, secretary at India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, told CNBC.
Stanford University ranks India among the top four countries along with the U.S., China and the UK in the global and national AI vibrancy ranking. GitHub, a community of developers, has ranked India at the top with the global share of 24% of all projects.
India’s opportunity lies more in “developing applications” which will be used to drive revenues for AI companies, Krishnan said.
On Tuesday, Microsoft announced $17.5 billion in investment in the country, spread over 4 years, aimed at expanding hyperscale infrastructure, embedding AI into national platforms, and advancing workforce readiness.
“This scale of capex gives Microsoft first‑mover advantage in GPU‑rich data centers while making Azure the preferred platform for India’s AI workloads, as well as deepening alignment with the government’s AI public infrastructure push,” said Tarun Pathak, research Director at Counterpoint Research.
Amazon on Wednesday announced plans to invest over $35 billion, on top of the $40 billion it has already invested in the country.
Over the past few months, AI and tech majors such as OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity have offered their tools for free to millions in India, with Google also firming up its plans to invest $15 billion toward building data center capacity for a new AI hub in southern India.
“India combines a huge digital user base, rapidly growing cloud and AI demand, and a high-talent IT ecosystem that can build and consume AI at scale, making it more than just a market for users and instead a core engineering and deployment hub,” Pathak said.
Data center opportunity
India has several advantages when it comes to building data centers. Markets such as Japan, Australia, China and Singapore in the Asia Pacific region have matured. Singapore, one of the oldest data center hubs in the region, has limited room to deploy large-scale data centers due to land availability issues.
India has abundant space for large-scale data center developments. When compared with data center hubs in Europe, power costs in India are relatively low. Coupled with India’s growing renewable energy capacity — critical for power-hungry data centers — and the economics begin to look compelling.
Local demand, fueled by the rise of e-commerce — a major driver of data center growth in recent years — and potential new rules for storing social media data, strengthens the case.
Put simply: India is entering a sweet spot where global cloud providers, AI players, and domestic digitalization all converge to create one of the world’s hottest data center markets.
“India is a pivotal market and one of the fastest‑growing regions for AI spending in Asia Pacific,” said Deepika Giri, associate vice president and head of research, big data & AI, at International Data Corporation.
“A major gap, and therefore a significant opportunity, lies in the shortage of suitable compute infrastructure for running AI models,” she added. Big Tech is looking to capitalize on the infrastructure opportunity in India by investing heavily in the cloud and data center space.
Global companies are expanding capacities closer to service bases in IT cities such as Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune from traditional centers like Mumbai and Chennai which are closer to landing cables, as they build data centers in India for the world, Krishnan said.
— CNBC’s Dylan Butts, Amitoj Singh contributed to this report.
Illustration of the SK Hynix company logo seen displayed on a smartphone screen.
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South Korea’s SK Hynix on Wednesday confirmed that it is weighing a U.S. listing as the memory chipmaker’s valuation soars on global demand for artificial intelligence hardware.
The company at the center of the AI infrastructure boom said in a regulatory filing that it was “reviewing various measures to enhance corporate value, including a U.S. stock market listing utilizing treasury shares,” while noting that no final decision has been made.
A U.S. listing would give American investors direct access to SK Hynix shares, which have surged nearly 230% so far this year in trading in Seoul on the back of strong AI demand.
The Korea Exchange on Tuesday asked SK Hynix to address a Korea Economic Daily report that the company had received proposals to list about 2.4% of its shares as American depositary receipts (ADRs) backed by treasury stock.
ADRs are tradable certificates issued by U.S. banks that represent shares in a foreign company. While they tend to trade with lower liquidity than a full U.S. listing, which can deter some investors, ADRs use existing shares rather than new stock, preserving value for existing shareholders.
SK Hynix holds treasury shares equivalent to about 2.4% of its issued stock, according to the company’s investor relations website.
Shares of SK Hynix rose 4% on Wednesday following its statement, before paring gains on Thursday, trading over 2% lower.
The company has cemented its lead in high-bandwidth memory chips, which are used in Nvidia’s AI processors.
A U.S. listing could help narrow valuation gaps between the company and U.S.-listed memory rival Micron Technology, as well as Samsung Electronics.
SK Hynix has also been committing significant capital at home and abroad to expand its supply capacity, as it races to keep up with growing AI demand.
The firm has committed nearly $4 billion to an advanced packaging fab in Indiana, aligning with Washington’s aim to expand domestic chip production.
SK Hynix is also set to benefit from the government’s growing support of the local semiconductor industry.
South Korea is considering building a 4.5 trillion won ($3.06 billion) foundry, funded by state and private capital to nurture local chipmakers amid growing demand for AI chips, according to a Reuters report on Wednesday.
The report added that South Korean President Lee Jae Myung met with executives from chipmakers, including Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, on the same day to discuss plans to maintain the country’s lead in memory chips and support its local chip manufacturing.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reacts while speaking during a press conference following the Federal Open Markets Committee meeting at the Federal Reserve on Dec. 10, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
It ended up being a “hawkish cut,” as expected. Still, investors managed to find a few gifts tucked betweenthe lumps of coal.
Even though the U.S. Federal Reserve lowered interest rates on Wednesday stateside, two regional bank presidents — Jeffrey Schmid of Kansas City and Austan Goolsbee of Chicago — wanted rates to stand pat.
Their cautioned was echoed in the Fed’s “dot plot” of rate projection, which showed officials penciling in just one cut in 2026 and another for 2027.
Even the Fed’s rate statement was repurposed from the December 2024 meeting, which ushered in a nine-month period without cuts until September this year.
Why, then, did U.S. markets rise after the meeting?
The biggest surprise was the Fed’s announcement that it would begin purchasing $40 billion in Treasury bills, starting Friday. That move increases the money supply in the economy. In other words, it’s a stealthy way to ease conditions, which helps support financial markets.
Next, Chair Jerome Powell dismissed speculation about future hikes.
“I don’t think that a rate hike … is anybody’s base case at this point,” Powell said. “I’m not hearing that.”
Fed officials also see the U.S economy as remaining resilient. Collectively, they increased their forecast for economic expansion in 2026 to 2.3% from an earlier estimate of 1.8% in September.
“We have an extraordinary economy,” said Powell.
And the markets may be setting up for an extraordinary finish to the year.
“The last interest rate decision of 2025 has essentially paved the way for a Santa Claus rally to end the year, and the S&P 500 is poised to exceed the 7,000 milestone in the next few weeks,” said José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers.
For investors, that would count as a very decent Christmas surprise.
— CNBC’s Jeff Cox contributed to this report.
What you need to know today
And finally…
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on the U.S. economy and affordability at the Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, U.S. Dec. 9, 2025.
U.S. President Donald Trump has once again provoked outrage among his European allies, describing them as “weak” in an interview with Politico published Tuesday. Criticizing the region’s response to the war in Ukraine, Trump said: “I think they don’t know what to do.”
That comment will be jarring for Europe after its efforts to support Ukraine — efforts which Trump has frequently downplayed. Instead, Europe has had to watch on as U.S. officials have held talks with their Russian and Ukrainian counterparts on a draft peace plan for Ukraine, without a seat at the table.
