How job cuts at Google, Facebook and other IT companies in the US are hurting Indians there

Indian engineering manager Abheer was in the middle of a performance review cycle when he was suddenly laid off from his job at Google – victim of a wave of industry-wide cutbacks.

“Everything was going fine,” said Abheer, 31, who asked to use a pseudonym to protect his identity. “I know a few people who actually got promoted in October and (then) they were laid off … there’s no kind of foresight that this is coming.”

The wave of tech layoffs in the United States at companies including Meta Platforms Inc, Google and Amazon are upending the lives of foreign workers like Abheer who are in the country on H-1B visas reserved for “high skilled” occupations.