Industry Pleads for More High-Tech Visas
Leaders of the burgeoning information technology industry--including several from Silicon Valley--told a key U.S. Senate committee Wednesday that an acute labor shortage threatens their global competitiveness unless a cap on the number of skilled foreign workers allowed into the country is lifted.
With the annual allotment of 65,000 temporary visas for skilled immigrants likely to be used up by May, the businessmen and several academic experts told lawmakers that companies would suffer--and perhaps move jobs overseas--unless they could hire more foreigners.
“The government spends billions of dollars on job creation,” said T.J. Rodgers, president of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. in San Jose, who showed photographs of successful immigrants who now help run his $600-million company. “Give me an engineer and I’ll create five new jobs for you. I’m offering you free money.”
But while both Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee agreed that additional visas are probably a necessary Band-Aid, they and the Clinton administration say any change in immigration policy should be paired with new industry efforts to train Americans for high-tech jobs.
Raymond Uhalde, a U.S. Department of Labor official, said the administration would not budge on the number of visas unless reforms Clinton has been lobbying for--including a requirement that employers seek local workers before applying for foreign help--are enacted at the same time.
And Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said: “We would hope there would be [greater efforts to improve public education] so that one day these companies won’t have to rely on foreign nationals but can--with pride--find, recruit, promote citizens of the United States.”
Studies cited by the businessmen and lawmakers indicate there are currently about 340,000 unfilled information technology jobs, with the economy expected to produce an additional 130,000 such positions annually for the next decade.
Meanwhile, the number of bachelor’s degrees in computer science plummeted 42% between 1986-95, and about a third of the nation’s engineering students are foreign nationals, according to those testifying before the committee.
Executives from Microsoft, Texas Instruments, Sun Microsystems and Cypress all pointed to their companies’ intense efforts to recruit locally and to pump money into U.S. schools for education and training, but they said it is simply insufficient.
“There are some who claim the solution to this problem is simply to step up efforts in the areas of education and training,” said Kenneth Alvares, human resources vice president at Mountain View-based Sun, which hired 4,788 people last year and anticipates 6,000 openings this year. “To be blunt, while this is important, it’s just not enough.”
Rogers said: “On a daily basis, our competitors in Tokyo scheme to stop the momentum of the American computer industry. Unfortunately, it appears they have no better ally than U.S. immigration policy.”
Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.) said he will soon introduce legislation that raises the visa cap to stave off a “disastrous” labor shortage. But he added the measure would include a scholarship program to help at least 10,000 low-income students a year major in high-tech fields.
“There is no reason to believe that allowing in more skilled workers and improving training and education in this country is an either/or proposition,” Abraham said.”I don’t think anyone wants to create a system where we’re bumping aside people from this country to get people from overseas.”
The program at issue is known as H1-B, started in 1990 to bring people with specific skills to the United States for six years.
At Wednesday’s hearing, lawmakers suggested creating a special high-tech visa category, or specifying skills in which U.S. workers fall short and adding visas in those areas.
But the executives rejected those ideas, saying theirs is a warp-speed industry with changing needs.
