By Daniel Wiessner
Aug 4 (Reuters) – OpenAI and a subsidiary will pay $3.2 million to settle U.S. government claims that they favored foreign workers with temporary employment visas and discriminated against U.S. job applicants in recruiting and hiring, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday.
The Justice Department in a release said that OpenAI and Statsig, which makes product development software, recruited foreign workers for some open positions and took various steps to discourage U.S. workers from applying.
That included requiring them to mail paper applications instead of submitting electronic ones, advertising jobs on the radio late at night, and not posting the openings on an external website, the Justice Department said. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company denied wrongdoing in the settlement agreement.
The Justice Department has announced at least a dozen other settlements since last year in cases involving alleged discrimination against U.S. workers, mostly by tech companies but none as high-profile as OpenAI.
President Donald Trump, a Republican, has said that many companies abuse the temporary employment visa system and has sought to limit the hiring of foreign workers. That has included imposing a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, which are heavily utilized in the tech sector. The fee has been blocked pending legal challenges.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement that “this substantial settlement ensures that OpenAI redresses harm and changes its recruitment practices so that U.S. workers receive a fair opportunity for highly sought-after technology positions.”
The Justice Department alleged that both companies violated the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, which bars discrimination based on citizenship.
The department said that while there were fewer than 10 positions at issue, the sizeable settlement reflected the harm OpenAI’s conduct caused to U.S. workers.
The settlement includes $1.2 million in penalties and $2 million to compensate alleged victims of discrimination. OpenAI also agreed to revise its employment policies, conduct training, and to be subject to monitoring by the Justice Department, the agency said.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Rod Nickel)