The world’s biggest tech company, Apple Inc. will pay $25 million to the US Justice Department after the agency accused Apple of hiring immigrant workers over US citizens and green card holders for certain jobs.
In a statement, the US Justice Department said that Apple did not hire US Citizens and permanent residents for certain jobs, which allowed the employer to hire immigrant workers and sponsor their green cards, which is in violation of federal law that bars discrimination against people based on their citizenship.
This settlement will be the largest settlement for the Justice Department involving cases related to discrimination based on citizenship. The settlement requires Apple to pay around $18.25 million to an unspecified number of affected workers and $6.75 million in civil penalties.
According to DOJ, Apple did not advertise for job openings that were eligible for the PERM program or permanent labour certification program on its website as it does for other job positions. Apple has been giving preference to foreign citizens for a number of reasons. It is seeing increasing revenues from out of America. Recently, Apple’s revenue in India increased substantially, and because of this, Apple has decided to manufacture more Apple iPhones in India. However, there are some other reasons, too.
Many people believe that Apple and many big companies do this because foreign labour can often be cheaper than that of US citizens. Moreover, the immigrants who depend on employers to sponsor their green card are less likely to leave the job for a new one.
