Twitter employee on H-1B visa laid off, called back, fired again: ‘Only 60 days to find new job’

A Twitter employee working on an H-1B visa has revealed how he was laid off from Twitter, called back and then abruptly fired again – leaving him with just 60 days to find a new job in the US before his visa expires.

The H-1B visa is a temporary work visa that allows US employers to hire highly qualified workers. If laid off by their employers, H-1B workers have a 60-day grace period during which they can legally remain in the United States and find a new employer that can sponsor their visa.

The Twitter employee who posted his story on Blind, an anonymous professional network, said that he was laid off from Twitter in early November and offered three months of pay as severance. Twitter carried out mass layoffs in early November under the directive of its new owner Elon Musk. Almost 3,700 employees were affected in the layoffs that reduced Twitter’s workforce by half.

This anonymous employee, however, was among the handful of people who were called back to the organisation after being sacked. “I was called by shortly after that because they think I am ‘critical talent’ and was asked to do documentation and provide code samples,” he wrote on Blind Thursday in a post that has now been deleted.

But things took a turn for the worse on Wednesday when the anonymous employee was fired again after being called back. This time, he was offered a month’s pay as severance, as opposed to three months’ severance that was offered to everyone in the first round of layoffs.

“Last night, I was abruptly fired without any reason and was offered 4 weeks’ severance…” he wrote, added that he was contemplating legal action. “Any employment lawyers, please DM me if you can help. I am on H1B and only have 60 days to find a new job during the holidays,” the former Twitter employee concluded.

Unfortunately, not everyone is having a great Thanksgiving break pic.twitter.com/cqmsXMQqQK

— Peter Yang (@petergyang) November 25, 2022

According to Business Insider, dozens of Twitter employees were fired overnight on Wednesday. The fired employees were mostly engineers who were informed they were being laid off for performance reasons, sources told Insider.