PayPal
PYPLCost Cuts, AI, and 1,198 H-1B Filings
PayPal is not Amazon scale, but it is not a small sponsor either. MyVisaJobs ranks PayPal #42 among FY2025 visa sponsors; the LCA disclosure table shows 1,198 Labor Condition Applications, 311 green-card labor certifications, and 970 H-1B petition approvals.
The timing matters. The Wall Street Journal reported that PayPal plans to cut 20% of staff over the next two to three years as part of a push to accelerate AI adoption and cut costs. Based on PayPal's reported 23,800 employees at the end of 2025, WSJ said that would amount to roughly 4,760 positions.
That does not prove a one-for-one replacement story. It does prove that PayPal is simultaneously reducing its workforce, leaning into AI-driven cost cuts, and maintaining a large software-heavy visa pipeline.
8 total denials across all years (0.1% of filings) - too small to display on this chart.
The Volume Rebounded as Headcount Fell
PayPal's LCA volume dipped to 1,021 in FY2024, then rebounded to 1,198 in FY2025. That was the company's highest total in this data series, narrowly ahead of FY2021.
At the same time, PayPal's own 10-K filings show global headcount falling from 30,900 employees at the end of 2021 to 23,800 at the end of 2025. U.S. headcount fell from 13,100 to 9,600 over the same period.
That makes FY2025 stand out: fewer employees overall, but more LCA filings than any year from FY2020 through FY2024.
This site no longer charts H-1B filings as a share of workforce. The ratio can blur U.S. employees, global employees, contractors, and offshore delivery headcount into one denominator.
Rows with a disclosed U.S.-employee denominator available here: 6. The analysis now uses filings, approvals, wage, worksite, and title concentration instead.
This Is Mostly Software Labor
The job mix is not mysterious. Software-developer occupation categories are PayPal's dominant H-1B lane, with 4,712 records across applications, general software, and systems software. The top job titles are variations on software engineer: Software Engineer 3, MTS 1 Software Engineer, Software Engineer 2, and MTS 2 Software Engineer.
The average FY2025 H-1B salary is $175,837, with a $157,423 prevailing wage benchmark. These are good jobs. They are also exactly the jobs American software workers are being told are disappearing because AI and efficiency work made them unnecessary.
Green Cards Are the Lock-In Layer
PayPal filed 311 labor certifications for green cards in FY2025, according to MyVisaJobs. The worker background data is concentrated in familiar channels: 1,409 listed workers from India, 226 from China, and 1,605 workers already in H-1B status in the green-card background table.
For the employer, that creates continuity. For the worker, it creates dependency. A worker in a multi-year green-card process has less room to negotiate, less room to leave, and less room to push back.
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| Title | Count |
|---|---|
| Software Engineer 3 | 1,217 |
| MTS 1, Software Engineer | 835 |
| Software Engineer 2 | 703 |
| MTS 2, Software Engineer | 374 |
| Software Engineer | 161 |
| Manager, Software Development 2 | 159 |
| Data Scientist 1 | 139 |
| Senior Software Engineer | 139 |
| Data Scientist 2 | 89 |
| Data Scientist | 84 |
- DOL OFLC LCA disclosure data, summarized by MyVisaJobs.
- USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub.
- MyVisaJobs PayPal employer profile, accessed May 2026.
- PayPal SEC Form 10-K filings.
- Wall Street Journal, “PayPal to Cut 20% of Staff Amid Turnaround Push,” May 2026.
- BLS OEWS May 2023 national median for software developers.
Caveat: LCA filings are not the same as H-1B petitions or hired workers. FY2024-FY2025 approval data comes from MyVisaJobs where a directly comparable USCIS annual export is unavailable.