Electronics Industry Relies on Foreign-Born Engineers

Increasingly, the Silicon Valley is relying on foreign-born engineers to aid the United States in its battle to dominate the development of advanced electronic technologies.

The practice eventually could leave the nation unprepared to meet the manpower demands of its critical electronics industry because many countries have begun restricting emigration of their engineers, industry experts say.

“Someday, the supply could dry up,” warned Stanford Penner, chairman of a National Academy of Engineering study on the issue at the University of California, San Diego.

“There is a very real risk that conditions will change abroad, that countries will take stronger steps to retain these people. After all, they need them just as badly as we do,” Penner said in a recent interview.

The growing reliance on foreign countries for engineers stems largely from a substantial decline in U.S.-born engineering students. According to the National Science Board, undergraduate engineering students declined 9%--from 406,000 to 370,000--between 1983 and 1986.

The 8% increase in graduate engineering students is attributed largely to the influx of foreign students, the board said.

At least 7,000 of approximately 20,000 engineers in the Silicon Valley are foreign-born, according to a variety of sources. That figure is reflected nationwide, where 30% of the electronics industry’s engineers are immigrants, according to the National Academy of Engineering in Washington, D.C.

By comparison, foreign-born engineers make up only 6% of the general U.S. engineer population. They come mainly from India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, France and Ireland.

Up to 5,000 of those in the Silicon Valley may have immigrated here from China and Taiwan, says David Yen, chairman of the local chapter of the Chinese Institute of Engineers and president of Dyna Mechtronics of Santa Clara.

Many of those engineers only recently arrived in the valley, about 50 miles south of San Francisco, said Yen. Membership in his organization has soared from only a few dozen in 1979 to 1,000.

Thomas Muller, an economics professor and immigration specialist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., says there is little choice but to continue relying on the foreign-born scientists.

“To stop the flow would be too painful,” he says.

But the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a leading professional association, is concerned about Congressional efforts to increase the numbers of immigrating engineers.

“We’re concerned that any influx of alien engineers could reduce the opportunities for Americans,” said Frank Lord, an association spokesman.