The US Department of Labor has suspended the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) process for Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro, HCL Technologies, Capgemini, Microsoft and Adobe. The action, announced on 8 October 2026, means the department will not accept new PERM applications from these employers or process their pending applications.
PERM is a required step for most employment-based green-card petitions. Employers must test the US labour market and show that no qualified, willing American worker is available for the position at the prevailing wage before proceeding with sponsorship.
Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the move alongside Vice President JD Vance and the head of the US Anti-Fraud Task Force. Sonderling said the six outsourcing companies were suspended outright, while Microsoft and Adobe were suspended “due to multiple active federal investigations.”
Sonderling said that since 2009, the companies had collectively requested almost three million foreign workers, received more than 230,000 H-1B approvals and obtained more than 100,000 permanent labour certifications. Vance pointed to Microsoft’s roughly 6,000 layoffs in 2025 while the company continued seeking permanent residency for foreign workers. He said Microsoft would remain barred until it showed it was prioritising American hiring.
The suspension does not revoke existing H-1B status, approved petitions or PERM certifications already issued. It applies to the labour-certification stage for future green-card sponsorship by the named employers. Reuters, CNBC, Bloomberg and Indian media outlets reported that most of the companies had not immediately commented; TCS declined to comment.
The same briefing opened investigations into nine universities, including Harvard, Yale and Stanford, over alleged misuse of J-1 exchange-visitor visas to undercut US wages. The action follows an earlier $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions and the administration’s “Project Firewall” enforcement drive, which officials said had opened about 200 cases.
