Google, Microsoft, Wall Street Giants Plan To Shift More Jobs To India As Layoffs And Trump’s Immigration Curbs Bite: Survey

About 28% of survey respondents said the shift is due to the new U.S. H-1B visa policy, which includes a $100,000 filing fee and skill-based prioritization.

📰 Article Image

A man is riding his bike past an office building of Microsoft in Gurugram, in the outskirts of New Delhi, India, on July 19, 2024. (Photo by Kabir Jhangiani/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

👤

Yuvraj Malik · Stocktwits

Published Jan 14, 2026, 8:37 AM

GOOGL
  • A new Blind survey says major employers are increasing hiring in India this year.
  • In some cases, India hiring is poised to replace certain roles previously based in the U.S.
  • U.S. workers face increased uncertainty amid mass layoffs driven by AI.

About 93% of professionals in a new survey said their employers – major multinationals including Uber, Google, Capital One, the D. E. Shaw Group, and Microsoft – are increasing hiring in India this year, reflecting a shift toward moving more U.S.-based roles to the region amid layoffs and visa constraints under the Trump administration.

About 38% said India hiring is replacing U.S.-based roles, while 23% said it complements U.S. hiring, suggesting that offshoring is increasingly viewed as a substitute rather than a supplement, according to a Blind survey of 2,392 verified professionals across the U.S. and India between Jan. 5 and Jan. 11.

📷
 


Blind is an anonymous professional networking platform where verified employees discuss workplace insights, culture, salaries, and layoffs.

The survey results indicate that companies are redirecting growth to India, signaling a structural shift in global workforce planning. Regarding how companies are expanding in the region, 25% said their employers are scaling up existing India teams, while about 20% reported creating new roles in India, and another 20% said specific projects or functions are being moved there.

📷


Late last year, President Donald Trump’s administration revised its H-1B visa policy to include a one-time $100,000 fee for new H-1B petitions filed after Sept. 21, 2025. It also revised its selection process to prioritise higher-skilled, higher-paid workers over the traditional random lottery.

Meanwhile, major companies – especially in the tech sector – continue to carry out large-scale layoffs, driven by redundancies and project reorganisation as they adopt AI. Wall Street firms Citi and BlackRock recently announced layoffs, while Microsoft is reportedly planning a massive retrenchment. 

There were a total of 1.17 million job cuts last year, the highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when 2.2 million layoffs occurred, according to a CNBC report. TechCrunch has a detailed list of layoffs across major tech companies.

About 28% respondents in the Bling survey said the new H-1B visa restrictions have pushed their companies to increase hiring in India.

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.

Read Next: Warren Buffett Reveals Berkshire Had $100B Ready To Spend Last Year, But Found No Big Deal Worth Doing