U.S. tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Netflix are increasingly adopting a talent outsourcing strategy. While implementing large-scale layoffs at their headquarters, these companies are significantly boosting recruitment in countries like India.
This has led to a paradoxical situation where, despite restructuring efforts, the overall global workforce of these tech behemoths continues to grow. Analysts attribute this trend to a combination of cost-cutting measures and strategies to navigate visa restrictions.
On Thursday, industry sources reported that The Information, a leading U.S. tech news outlet, highlighted an upward trend in overall employment figures among major tech companies.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, reported a global workforce of 190,167 at the end of the third quarter last year, up 3.7% (6,844 employees) from the projected 183,323 for the end of 2024. Meta saw an even more substantial increase, with its total employee count reaching 78,450 in the third quarter of last year, an 18.5% jump from 66,185 in the same quarter of 2023.
Amazon’s workforce is expected to grow from approximately 1,556,000 (including logistics personnel) by the end of 2024 to about 1,578,000 in the third quarter of last year, an increase of roughly 20,000 employees.
The rise in overall employee numbers, despite significant layoffs in the U.S., can be attributed to two factors: hiring key talent in cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and next-generation infrastructure, and a substantial increase in IT recruitment from developing nations, particularly India and African countries.
A study by Xpheno, a specialized workforce consulting firm, revealed that six major tech giants (Google, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Netflix) hired 32,000 new employees in India alone last year, bringing their total Indian workforce to 214,000. In stark contrast, tech companies, including these giants, cut 127,000 jobs in the U.S. during the same period.
This shift has not gone unnoticed by employees. On anonymous workplace platforms like Blind and information technology (IT) community forums such as Reddit, workers have been sharing their experiences. Common testimonies include reports of teams being laid off and replaced by Indian hires, claims that the salary of one U.S. employee can cover three to five new hires in India, and concerns about Indian workers replacing American jobs.
In a Blind survey, a Meta employee explained the nuanced approach: while top-tier AI talent is still recruited in Silicon Valley, mid-level and low-skilled positions are increasingly being moved to India.
This outsourcing trend is driven by lower labor costs and tightened H-1B visa regulations. In September last year, the U.S. government dramatically increased the application fee for new H-1B visas from 1,000 USD to 5,000 USD to a staggering 100,000 USD.
With Indian nationals accounting for 71% of H-1B visa issuances (as of 2024), tech companies have pivoted to local recruitment in India as U.S.-based hiring of foreign talent becomes more restricted.
An industry insider noted that big tech firms are announcing investment plans in India one after another. It expects hiring in India to accelerate this year, intensifying a polarization trend where top-tier AI engineers receive astronomical compensation while lower-skilled positions are increasingly filled in India.
