Microsoft to Cut 4,800 Jobs, Including 1,600 in Xbox Division

Microsoft announced it will lay off 4,800 employees total, including 1,600 from its Xbox division, New York Post reported. The cuts come after the company received approval this year to hire 2,273 employer-sponsored non-immigrant workers under the H-1B visa program, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data.

Microsoft ranks as the sixth-largest beneficiary of H-1B visas and has additional applications pending. Most of its employees are based in the United States. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma stated in a memo that the business is not healthy.

"We are operating at margins that are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses," she wrote. Sharma said the strategy is to reset Xbox. A Microsoft spokesperson told Fox News Digital that decisions are based on business need, not visa status, and that H-1B employees were also affected by the job eliminations.

Vice President JD Vance announced on Tuesday that the Department of Labor has begun dozens of subpoenas and investigations into H-1B visa fraud. "American jobs ought to go to American workers and not foreign fraudsters and the Department of Labor is fighting back against it," Vance said. President Donald Trump previously sought to limit H-1B use by imposing a $100,000 fee per application.

A federal judge in Boston struck down the order, ruling it amounted to a tax that only Congress can impose.