Troubling: America’s largest job cutter is also its largest visa importer
Amazon has emerged as the single largest source of tech layoffs since the pandemic era began, while simultaneously importing foreign labor at a scale that far exceeds its actual job creation rate. This dual-track workforce strategy raises serious questions as to whether U.S. workers are being displaced rather than supplemented – and whether federal immigration programs are being used as parallel labor systems instead of emergency skill-gap tools.
Amazon leads global tech layoffs by a wide margin
According to Statista’s global tracking of tech layoffs from March 2020 through Oct. 28, 2025, Amazon tops the list with the single largest layoff event on record: 30,000 employees cut on Oct. 27, 2025. Additional Amazon layoffs include 10,000 employees in November 2022 and 9,000 more in March 2023, placing Amazon well ahead of other tech giants such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, Intel and Tesla in total job eliminations.
January 2026 cuts push layoffs near total workforce growth
On Jan. 28, 2026, Amazon confirmed yet another round of job cuts totaling approximately 16,000 positions after an internal email about global redundancies was reportedly sent in error. When combined with previously disclosed layoffs, Amazon’s confirmed job cuts now approach 65,000 employees, nearly matching the company’s entire net workforce growth from 2021 through 2024.
Modest job growth hides aggressive workforce churn
During the 2021-2024 period, Amazon’s total workforce grew by approximately 71,661 employees. However, an estimated 66,916 of those roles fell into professional or specialty occupations that qualify for the H-1B visa program. In other words, nearly all net workforce growth occurred in positions explicitly eligible for foreign labor importation under U.S. immigration law.
H-1B demand exceeds actual job creation
Over the same period, Amazon requested approximately 115,607 H-1B visas from the Department of Labor and received approval from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for 98,559 H-1B visas. That volume exceeds Amazon’s total net workforce growth by more than 43,000 positions and surpasses professional job growth by nearly 49,000 roles. In essence, the company sought roughly 1.7 H-1B visas for every net new professional job created, an imbalance that points to labor stockpiling and worker replacement, not a genuine hiring shortage.
The picture becomes even more troubling when Amazon’s industry classification is examined. During this same period, Amazon filed many of its H-1B petitions under NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) codes 44-45, which cover the retail trade sector and was approved for 70,274 H-1B visas under that classification. Yet federal labor data shows that the retail sector was not experiencing a worker shortage. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, NAICS 44-45 lost approximately 21,900 STEM jobs and more than 212,000 non-STEM jobs nationwide between 2019 and 2024. Approving tens of thousands of specialty-worker visas in an industry that was shedding jobs raises serious questions regarding whether these visas were filling genuine labor needs or being used to replace U.S. workers during a period of contraction.
Virginia is one of Amazon’s most strategic U.S. hubs, home to major corporate offices, data centers, cloud infrastructure and headquarters-linked operations. From 2020 to 2025, Amazon was approved for 62,897 visas in Virginia alone, yet during that same period, the state recorded the addition of only 24,750 STEM-related jobs statewide. In simple terms, Amazon received approval for more than two visas for every new STEM job Virginia added.
That mismatch is important because visa approvals are supposed to respond to labor shortages in local job markets. When visa volumes far exceed actual job growth in a specific state, it suggests the visas are not being used to fill unmet demand. Instead, they appear to support workforce substitution, labor stockpiling or the reshaping of jobs in ways that disadvantage U.S. workers already in that market. For a company with Amazon’s scale and influence in Virginia, this disparity raises serious questions as to whether immigration programs are being used as intended or as a tool to restructure labor to favor foreigners during a period of limited job growth.
Green card filings signal permanent labor replacement
This pattern of importing foreign workers far beyond actual labor demand is not isolated to visa counts and layoffs; it mirrors Amazon’s behavior under the Department of Labor’s PERM (Program Electronic Review Management) system as well. Under PERM, employers are required to test the U.S. labor market and demonstrate that they made a genuine effort to recruit qualified American workers before sponsoring a foreign worker for a green card.
Yet previously reported data show that between 2020 and 2024, Amazon filed 21,012 PERM labor certification applications and effectively certified that “no qualified U.S. workers” applied for those roles, even when many of these jobs were in fields with active American applicants and even during periods of layoffs. In practice, Amazon repeatedly used tactics such as “batching” wage determinations and minimal or vague recruitment ads that discouraged American applicants, allowing the company to avoid meaningful domestic recruitment and proceed with foreign hires. This matches the broader mismatch now widely occurring: Tens of thousands of H-1B (and other) visas are being approved or sought in sectors and states where actual U.S. job growth is flat or contracting, suggesting the company is sidestepping true labor demand and formal recruitment obligations in favor of foreign worker pipelines.
Student visa labor surged during layoffs
In 2024 alone, Amazon hired approximately 13,372 foreign workers through OPT, STEM OPT and CPT programs at the same time it was laying off U.S. employees across multiple divisions. These student visa programs exempt employers from prevailing wage requirements, employer FICA taxes and labor market tests, making student workers significantly cheaper and easier to replace than domestic professionals. That single year of student labor intake equals nearly one-fifth of Amazon’s total net workforce growth over four years. When viewed alongside Amazon’s use of retail NAICS codes tied to job losses and its heavy visa concentration in states like Virginia, OPT and CPT hiring appears less like training and more like a shadow foreign labor system operating during active workforce reductions.
Layoffs plus visa hiring undermine labor shortage claims
When layoffs, visa filings, industry data and state employment figures are examined together, Amazon’s labor shortage narrative collapses. While the company eliminated roughly as many jobs as it created, it simultaneously requested and received approval for more than 140,000 foreign labor authorizations. This occurred even as the retail trade sector under NAICS codes 44-45 was shedding jobs nationwide and as states like Virginia added far fewer STEM jobs than the number of visas Amazon was approved to use there.
Thus, rather than reflecting unmet demand, the numbers point to labor substitution and wage suppression, reinforced by Amazon’s documented PERM history, in which the company has repeatedly certified that no qualified Americans were available for jobs in markets experiencing layoffs and contraction.
Enforcement risks grow as patterns repeat
Federal agencies typically scrutinize employers that conduct mass layoffs while continuing to file H-1B petitions, sponsor green cards or expand OPT hiring, especially when those employers claim labor shortages in shrinking industries or states with limited job growth.
Amazon now exhibits all major indicators associated with labor displacement risk: visa demand far exceeding job creation, reliance on student labor during layoffs, use of industry classifications tied to job losses and a PERM record showing repeated claims of “no available U.S. workers.” Together, these patterns raise serious questions not just about compliance, but about whether immigration programs are being used to restructure the workforce around cheaper, more dependent foreign labor.
The bottom line for American workers
Amazon’s workforce record from 2021 through early 2026 shows a company cutting tens of thousands of jobs while importing foreign labor at volumes that far exceed its actual growth, its industry’s performance and even state-level job creation. When combined with Amazon’s history of avoiding meaningful recruitment of Americans under the PERM program, the conclusion becomes hard to ignore: The issue is no longer a skills shortage, it is a system that increasingly prioritizes cost control and labor dependency over the American workers who built the company and were legally entitled to be considered first.