# Microsoft and Adobe Can't File PERM. Pitch Engineers Stuck Before I-140

_The Oct 8 PERM suspension froze green cards at Microsoft and Adobe. Here's who is open to moving, what the offer must include, and how to find them by level._

- Canonical URL: https://www.refolk.ai/blog/microsoft-adobe-perm-suspension-pitch-engineers-before-i-140
- Published: 2026-11-06
- Reading time: 10 min
- Keywords: Microsoft PERM suspension, hire H-1B engineers green card sponsorship, PERM suspension H-1B transfer, Adobe PERM suspended, sponsor green card for H-1B transfer

On October 8, 2026, the Department of Labor stopped taking PERM filings from Microsoft, Adobe and six IT services firms, and paused their pending cases with no end date. Nobody's H-1B status changed. The change is in the green-card process: thousands of engineers without an approved I-140 have had their clock stopped, and for them, moving to an employer that will file now costs almost nothing.

Microsoft's December 31 buyout exit date means the window to reach them closes in early December, not in spring.

## What did the October 8 PERM suspension actually change?

The suspension froze the green-card process at eight employers and did not touch anyone's visa. DOL will accept no new PERM applications from those companies and has stopped processing the ones already pending. H-1B status, extensions and transfers are unaffected.

The rest of this piece depends on three terms:

- **PERM** is the labor certification the employer files with DOL. It belongs to the employer, not the worker.
- **I-140** is the immigrant petition that follows once PERM is certified.
- **Priority date** is the worker's place in the green-card queue. Only an approved I-140 carries it to a new employer.

Vice President JD Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the suspension. It covers:

- Microsoft
- Adobe
- Tata
- Infosys
- Wipro
- HCL
- Cognizant
- Capgemini

Legally it is a suspension, not a debarment. Under 20 CFR 656.31(b), DOL can suspend for an initial 180 days and extend that while investigations continue. On Microsoft, Vance said it would last "as long as it needs to." As of October 30, DOL still had not posted a written notice.

Vance's numbers for Microsoft's last fiscal year were 6,258 H-1B approvals and 3,157 PERM cases, which he set against roughly 6,000 layoffs. Amazon and Meta, the two largest H-1B sponsors, were not suspended. This is not an industry-wide action. It applies to eight named employers.

> **~4,170** Microsoft H-1B approvals last fiscal year that went to people already on staff
>
> Two-thirds of 6,258. Any of them without an approved I-140 now has a green-card path that runs through a frozen PERM queue.

## Who is actually open to moving now?

The best targets are engineers who have no PERM filed yet, or whose PERM has been pending for less than 365 days. They have no priority date to lose and no portable case to protect. Engineers with an approved I-140 are the least affected by the freeze, so they are the least urgent to pitch.

The mechanism is simple: **a PERM belongs to the employer and does not move with the worker.** A pending PERM gives the worker no priority date. An approved I-140 does carry its priority date to a new employer's petition. It also supports H-1B extensions past the six-year limit, so the freeze barely touches someone who already has one.

| Stage at Microsoft or Adobe | What the freeze does | What leaving costs them | Pitch priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| No PERM filed yet | Blocks filing, no end date | Close to nothing | Highest |
| PERM pending under 365 days | Pauses the case; no priority date, no AC21 106(a) extension | Close to nothing | High |
| PERM pending 365+ days | Pauses the case | They walk away from a long-pending case | Case by case |
| Approved I-140 | Very little | Priority date moves with them | Lowest urgency |

For the top two rows, the case at their current employer is worth nothing until DOL lifts the suspension, and nobody can say when that will happen. A new employer's PERM is not affected, because the suspension only applies to applications filed by the eight companies. An engineer who moves gets a clock that is running again. One who stays gets a paused clock and a vague promise.

## How big is the pool, and where does it sit?

Microsoft is about 15 times larger than Adobe in engineer counts, and most of that volume is in the Seattle area. Adobe's pool is smaller and more spread out, with clusters in Seattle, Austin, the Bay Area and Utah.

In Refolk's index of professional profiles, these are the US software engineers who mention each company:

| Segment | Profiles matching | Currently at company (25-profile sample) | Implied current employees (est.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft-linked SWE, Senior SWE, SWE II | 19,681 | 72% | ~14,200 |
| Microsoft Software Engineer II only | 3,545 | 96% | ~3,400 |
| Adobe-linked SWE, Senior SWE, Computer Scientist | 1,300 | 52% | ~680 |

Two caveats. First, these matches come from profile headlines that mention the company, so they include former employees. That is why the "currently at" share matters. Second, a 25-profile sample is directional. Treat the implied counts as estimates, not a census.

What stands out:

- **Microsoft's pool is mostly current employees.** Seventy-two percent are still there, and the top locations are Seattle, Bellevue and the SF Bay Area.
- **Adobe's pool is half alumni.** Only 52% of the sample still work there. Adobe is also the smallest of the eight suspended employers, ranked No. 45 among H-1B sponsors. Its engineering hubs are Seattle, Austin, San Jose and Lehi, so a search limited to San Jose misses three of the four.
- **The PERM-to-H-1B ratio leaves a gap.** Microsoft filed about 0.50 PERM cases per H-1B approval (3,157 against 6,258). That suggests many H-1B holders there had not reached the PERM stage at all, which is the "no PERM filed yet" row in the table above.

> **Mid-level engineering roles open now** - [see the open roles](https://www.refolk.ai/jobs/search?family=engineering&seniority=mid)
>
> Live postings at the level where most pre-I-140 engineers sit.

## How do you find them without filtering by nationality?

Search by title band, team, location and tenure. Never search by nationality. Filtering on national origin is a discrimination risk, and it tells you nothing about someone's I-140 stage, which is the only thing that determines whether the freeze affects them.

Use level as a stand-in for tenure. At Microsoft, Software Engineer II is the early-career band. Refolk's index has 3,545 US profiles with that title mentioning Microsoft, 96% of them currently there in the sample, mostly in Seattle and Redmond. That band is 18% of the Microsoft-linked engineer pool, and it overlaps most with the "on H-1B, no I-140 yet" group. Not everyone in it is on a visa, which is one more reason the outreach should lead with their work.

The signals to search on:

1. **Title band.** "Software Engineer II" at Microsoft, and "Software Engineer" or "Computer Scientist" at Adobe.
2. **Location.** Redmond, Seattle and Bellevue for Microsoft. Seattle, Austin, San Jose and Lehi for Adobe.
3. **Tenure.** Early years at the company, the stretch most likely to predate an approved I-140.
4. **Team.** Product area and org, so you can check them against the teams excluded from the buyout (more on that below).
5. **Public work.** GitHub activity, talks and papers, so your first message can be about their work and not their visa.

Keyword search handles this badly. "Software Engineer II" AND "Microsoft" pulls in every alum who ever held that title, and a tenure window is hard to express in boolean at all. [Refolk](/) is built for this kind of search: you describe the person in plain English (level, company, city, how long they've been there, what they work on) and get back a ranked shortlist drawn from GitHub, LinkedIn and the open web.

> **Example search:** "Software Engineer II at Microsoft in Redmond or Seattle, in their first few years at the company, working on cloud infrastructure, with public GitHub activity" - [run it on Refolk](https://www.refolk.ai/s/h810z9ay2p)
>
> A ranked shortlist of current Microsoft engineers matching that level, location and team, with LinkedIn and GitHub links for each.

## What does an offer have to include to win them?

It needs a dated green-card plan in writing, and an H-1B transfer filed while the engineer is still employed. A general promise to sponsor doesn't move anyone. A PERM filing date the engineer can plan around does.

The timing explains why. DOL analyst review currently averages about 336 days. The full PERM process takes 16 to 20 months. PERM has no premium processing, so it can't be sped up with money. Premium processing exists for the I-140, but only after PERM is certified. And the October 2026 Visa Bulletin moved EB-2 and EB-3 cutoffs backward for most countries, so the wait after I-140 got longer too.

Now take an engineer in H-1B year four. To extend past year six without an approved I-140, they need a PERM that has been pending for 365 days before year six ends. With review times around 336 days and the pre-filing steps on top of that, a vague promise to start the process once they settle in can push them past that point. They know this. Your offer should show that you know it too.

What to put in the offer letter or a side letter:

1. **A PERM filing commitment with a date.** "PERM filed within N days of start," where N is a number your immigration counsel has confirmed you can meet.
2. **Immediate H-1B transfer.** File the transfer petition while they are still on Microsoft's or Adobe's payroll. This is where the PERM suspension and the H-1B transfer meet: the transfer itself is routine, and the timing is what matters.
3. **Premium processing on the I-140.** Commit to it once PERM certifies.
4. **Who pays.** Say clearly that the company covers PERM, I-140 and transfer fees.
5. **An honest priority-date statement.** If they have no approved I-140, they have no priority date to bring. Say so. Don't let them find out from their lawyer.

> A promise to sponsor is on every careers page. A PERM filing date in the offer letter is what gets someone to move.

## Why does the Microsoft buyout make November the deadline?

H-1B holders who take Microsoft's buyout lose the job their status depends on when they leave on December 31. Your offer has to land before the early-December decision date so the transfer can be filed while they're still employed.

The Voluntary Exit Offer covers about 60,000 employees at level 70 and below in the US, Canada, India and the UK. That is more than a quarter of Microsoft's roughly 223,000 staff. Employees decide in early December and leave December 31. Amy Coleman, Microsoft's chief people officer, described it as giving employees "a new choice." Some marketing, sales and engineering teams are excluded.

For a pre-I-140 engineer on an H-1B, the choice comes down to this:

- **Stay:** a frozen PERM, a green-card timeline nobody can predict, and a company that just offered more than a quarter of its staff money to leave.
- **Take the buyout with no offer in hand:** a payout, then a status problem starting January 1.
- **Take the buyout with your offer and a transfer already filed:** the payout plus a green-card process that is moving again.

You want to be the third option, and that only works if your offer arrives in November. This is also why you need team-level data, not just a company name. An engineer on an excluded team is not making the buyout decision, so their urgency is lower. Refolk lets you keep the search in plain English and rerun it as you learn which orgs were carved out, so the shortlist changes as the picture does.

## FAQ

### Does the Microsoft PERM suspension affect H-1B status?

No. The suspension covers PERM labor certification only. H-1B status, extensions and transfers continue normally for employees of Microsoft, Adobe and the six IT services firms. What has stopped is the green-card process for anyone whose case still depends on a PERM filed by one of those eight employers.

### Can a new employer sponsor a green card for an H-1B transfer from Microsoft or Adobe?

Yes. The suspension applies to PERM applications filed by the eight named companies, not to engineers who used to work there. A new employer can file the H-1B transfer and then its own PERM under normal rules. The new PERM starts from scratch, which is why a dated filing commitment matters so much in the offer.

### Does a pending PERM give the engineer a priority date they can take with them?

No. A PERM belongs to the employer and gives no priority date on its own. Only an approved I-140 carries a priority date over to a new employer's petition. Engineers with only a pending PERM at Microsoft or Adobe have nothing to carry over, so leaving costs them very little.

### How long will the PERM suspension last?

Nobody knows. Under 20 CFR 656.31(b), DOL can suspend for an initial 180 days and extend while investigations continue, and Vance said the Microsoft suspension would last "as long as it needs to." As of October 30, DOL had posted neither a written notice nor an end date. That cuts both ways in outreach. Don't tell a candidate Microsoft will never file their green card, and expect them to have read advice like Reddy Neumann Brown PC's employee FAQ, which tells workers not to move on headlines alone. The pitch that holds up is factual: where their case stands, what moving changes, and your filing dates in writing.

---

_From the Refolk blog. More posts: https://www.refolk.ai/blog/index.md_