Amazon won’t be sponsoring any new US green cards for foreign workers for the rest of this year, a sign of sustained weakness in the tech job market.
Earlier this year, the company told employees it would continue to pause all new PERM filings through 2024, per an internal announcement seen by Business Insider.
PERM is a permanent labor-certification process run by the US Department of Labor. It aims to ensure that admitting foreign workers into the country doesn’t impact US workers’ job opportunities, wages, or working conditions. It’s often the first step toward a green card.
Amazon said in the memo it had initially paused PERM applications in 2023 and decided to keep these suspended until the end of this year after reviewing “labor market conditions and immigrant requirements.”
“It was determined that we are unable to continue with PERM filings through 2024,” the memo said. “We know this is disappointing, and we did not take this decision lightly.”
Tech layoffs make green cards harder to get
Jennifer Gordon, an immigration and labor law professor at Fordham University, said the wave of job cuts across Amazon and other tech companies has made the PERM process more complicated.
Companies now have to demonstrate that laid-off employees are not qualified for the jobs intended for foreign workers. They also have to notify people who were laid off in the past six months about job openings before filing PERM applications for foreign workers.
“To get a PERM application approved, an employer needs to show that there is no qualified US worker interested in filling the position,” Gordon told BI. “Given how many layoffs there have been recently across the tech industry, it’s become difficult for them to sustain that claim.”
‘Alternative immigration pathways’
In an email to BI, an Amazon spokesperson said the company has “temporarily paused” its PERM program and is working with affected employees to find “alternative immigration pathways” to extend their stay in the US.
“Due to government requirements for the Green Card process, we have temporarily paused our permanent labor certification program,” the spokesperson wrote. “We know this is difficult for affected employees, and we’re working hard to support them and find alternate immigration pathways as soon as possible.”
If Amazon can restart the program this year, it will do so, the spokesperson added.
In the internal memo, Amazon told employees it will “resume analyzing labor market conditions” at the end of 2024 to potentially reactivate the PERM program next year. Google also paused new PERM applications last year, the Observer reported.
A soft labor market
Gordon said the fact that Amazon is pausing all new PERM applications through the end of the year suggests the company is anticipating a soft labor market in the near term. The more saturated the labor market is with laid-off US workers, the more difficult it is for companies to assert that a foreign employee is better suited for the job.
“It could reflect Amazon’s best guess about when the labor market will be less glutted with unemployed US workers,” Gordon said.
The Amazon spokesperson told BI that the company “remains optimistic” about the US labor market and its ability to “one day file these applications again.”
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