On October 8, 2026, Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said the Department of Labor will stop permanent labor certification work for eight named employers. He spoke at a public event with Vice President JD Vance. Reuters reported the remarks the same day. UPI carried the same list of companies and the same description of what would stop.
The employers named are Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Capgemini. Sonderling’s statement, as quoted by Reuters, was that the department “will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labor certification applications involving these companies.” UPI reported that Microsoft and Adobe were included because of multiple active federal investigations, and that the other six were named as large information-technology firms. No end date was given. Vance said the suspensions would last “as long as it needs to.”
Sonderling gave combined figures for these companies since 2009: almost 3 million foreign-worker requests, more than 230,000 H-1B approvals, and more than 100,000 permanent labor certifications. On Microsoft specifically, Vance said the company laid off 6,000 American workers last year while receiving about 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards. Reuters and UPI both reported a Microsoft response that about 80 percent of its H-1B filings in the last fiscal year were extensions or changes of status for people already employed there, not new hires.
This is not a cancellation of H-1B status. The reports do not say that people who already hold H-1B classification lose work authorization. PERM is the Department of Labor’s labor-certification step. An employer usually needs an approved PERM before it files Form I-140 for an EB-2 or EB-3 green card that is not a national-interest waiver. EB-2 NIW and EB-1A self-petitions do not go through PERM, so this announcement does not change those petition types. It does matter for employees at the eight companies whose green-card plan depends on a PERM application that is pending or not yet filed.
As of October 9, the department’s own newsroom had not posted a written directive spelling out duration, already-certified cases, or how a case is reinstated. The October 9 Office of the Secretary release is about Sonderling’s swearing-in as the 31st Secretary of Labor, not about PERM. Until DOL publishes that instruction, the public record of the change is the October 8 announcement as reported by Reuters.
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Source: Reuters