Tribune Reporter Insults Phoenix Techies

Date: Friday, August 15, 2003 1:30 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

For years I have criticized the Arizona media for ignoring the H-1B
issue even though it's impact has been devastating for local technical
workers. This article is the first to appear locally in about three
years and it's enough to make me hope that it will be another three
years before the next.

Jennifer Ryan made the outlandish statement that in two months there
will be a shortage of skilled workers in the Eastern part of the
Phoenix metro area, primarily because the yearly cap on H-1B visas will
go down from 195,000 to 65,000 in October. That's a slap in the face
for the multitudes of unemployed programmers and engineers that can't
get a job because they were displaced by the cheap young blood of
indentured nonimmigrant workers. Adding insult to injury, she implied
that the reason Arizonans can't get hired is because of a lack of
skills.

Ryan used an HR manager at Inter-Tel for her source of information.
Good reporters would be able to determine that a biased source of
information should be balanced by someone who has an opposing view, but
not Ryan - she went to even worse sources such as Intel.

We all know about the abuse of H-1B by Intel, but many of you might not
have heard of Inter-Tel, a high-tech employer in the East Phoenix area.
Inter-Tel isn't a large company and yet they have a large number of
entries in the LCA database:
http://www.zazona.com/LCA-Data/

For such a small employer it's astonishing to use the LCA database to
discover the large number of H-1Bs they hire for software positions.
Inter-Tel's love of H-1Bs is not a surprise to me because I have
interviewed for employment with them at least three times. Twice I was
interviewed by Indian H-1Bs that were more interested in insulting me
than in finding out why I could contribute to Inter-Tel.

The only good news today is that the Arizona Republic printed a very
good letter to the editor that mentioned H-1B. I have tried for years
to get one printed and they have ignored me every time. I don't think
the AZR is ready to be objective about this issue yet, but they at
least allowed an opinion that differs from Ryan's biased sources of
information. That letter-to-the-editor follows Ryan's stinker.

If you decide to contact Ryan, keep in mind that this might be her
first article on H-1B. Perhaps as she learns more about the issue she
will publish better articles in the future.

http://www.aztrib.com/index.php?sty=7961

East Valley labor pool may shrink

By Jennifer Ryan, Tribune

East Valley companies that have relied on highly skilled foreign
employees through a work permit program could see that labor pool
shrink dramatically in two months.

On Oct. 1, the federal government will drop the number of H-1B
nonimmigrant temporary worker visas nationwide from 195,000 to 65,000.
The reduction means that U.S. companies may have a tougher time getting
the number of visas they need to hire engineers, computer programmers,
nurses and other high-demand workers, many of whom are graduating from
local universities as foreign students.

In Arizona, 4,750 people hold H-1B visas, allowing them to work in the
United States for six years, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Nationwide, 60 percent are from India. More than half have bachelor's
degrees, and nearly 40 percent are working in computer and information
technology-related positions.

"We're going to have to look harder in more places to find candidates,"
said Lisa Chasse, human resources manager for Inter-Tel, a Tempe-based
telecommunications company. "It's just going to make them more
difficult to find here."

The reduction returns the number of H-1B visas to levels before 1999.
To accommodate hiring demands during a booming economy, Congress passed
legislation raising the cap to as high as 195,000 until the end of
fiscal 2003. The law also established a $500 fee for each visa to fund
education and training for U.S. workers.

To prepare for the reduction, Maricopa County is trying to access those
fees by applying for a $3 million federal grant for training current
employees and the unemployed. By increasing their skills, local job
candidates become more competitive and companies may rely less on
highly educated workers from overseas, said Suzanne Ledy, the county's
H-1B grant coordinator.

"It has not only an impact for work-force development, but it also has
an economic impact because we're growing the work force," she said.

The county was awarded the grant once before, and 346 people have
graduated so far from Arizona State University and other schools. If
the county is awarded the grant again this year, up to 600 people from
11 companies, nearly all of which have a presence in the East Valley,
will be able to take advantage of training programs in engineering,
manufacturing, biotechnology and information technology.

"We prefer to keep the jobs in the country," said David Curtis,
director of technical applications support for Banner Health, which
hopes to provide technology training to employees through the second
grant. "By providing employment training to the local population
without having to bring someone in from overseas, it means Maricopa
County can have less need to import the kind of talent we could grow in
our own back yard."

The reduction in visas comes at a time when businesses have shrunk
their work forces, company representatives said. Nonetheless, companies
such as Intel Corp., which is participating in the county's training
program, said they will still be challenged by the drop in available
worker visas. While job training helps, positions requiring specialized
skills such as advanced process engineers remain hard to fill, said
Tracy Koon, a spokeswoman for Intel.

The problem is linked to the nation's educational system, which does
not do enough to develop math and science skills at an early age, said
Margaret Sova, program manager for Intel's manufacturing research
committee.

"We need scientists in order to stay leading-edge," she said. "It's
hard to play catch-up when you're a freshman in college."

The result is growing demand and lagging supply of people with advanced
technical skills, which forces companies to recruit people from outside
the United States, Koon said. Critics have charged that the H-1B
program takes jobs away from U.S. citizens, but the program is
symptomatic of bigger educational problems in this country, she said.

"We're turning out fewer and fewer of these (technically skilled)
people," Koon said. "It really is a budding national catastrophe."

Contact Jennifer Ryan by email, or phone (480) 898-6535
jryan@aztrib.com

Job losses reflect bad policy

The reason we are not having a jobs recovery despite all the stimulus
efforts is because of mass exporting of manufacturing, information
technology, design and research-and-development jobs by corporations to
areas of the world where costs are lower.

Companies can bring in low-cost manufactured goods, services, etc.,
without any significant economic penalty. From the corporate viewpoint,
there is no economic downside, so long as the consumer has the
wherewithal to buy the goods and services.

This current recession (from a jobs viewpoint) is actually a high-tech
depression. Unemployment for electrical engineers reached 7-plus
percent earlier this year, the highest ever and higher than the
national average.

But wait, things are even worse. Companies are replacing American
workers in the U.S. with lower-paid temporary foreign workers through
the H-1B and L-1 visa programs.
In 2001 and 2002 more than 500,000 H-1B visas were issued or renewed,
two-thirds of which were used in the high-tech sector. Another 500,000
L-1 visas were issued. Together, this represents 1.6 million jobs that
are no longer available to American high-tech professionals, including
electrical, computer, and software engineers.

The loss of jobs is a consequence of the trade policies and agreements
enacted by our government over the last 30 years. The chickens are
finally coming home to roost.

- John W. Stafford Phoenix

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Rob Sanchez is board member of NAEA - www.NAEA.US

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