9 Annoying Articles
9 Annoying Articles
Date: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 1:02 AM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
by Rob Sanchez
August 17, 2005 No. 1316
The lobbyists who seek to increase the H-1B cap are working overtime to plant articles in the press. The worst thing about these articles is that there is usually no dissenting opinion. When there is an opposing voice, it's usually one or two sentences with a paraphrase instead of a direct quote, while the proponents of increasing H-1B are almost always directly quoted. Most of these articles don't even pretend to be objective but the casual reader would get the impression that everyone in the U.S. agrees that there is a shortage of high-tech workers, and the only way to solve the shortage is to bring in highly educated foreigners who have the skills that we don't. This is another sad example of how truth in the American media is determined by the highest bidder.
The 8 articles I have included below are being repeated in newspapers all over the U.S. so don't make the mistake that they are appearing in just a few misguided rags. This is a full-scale propaganda campaign to sway public opinion and to pressure Congress to raise the H-1B cap.
In the next section of this newsletter I have parsed some of the most annoying quotes. I think most of the readers of this newsletter are smart enough to understand why the statements are pure bunk so I won't waste time debunking them.
The very last quote is one of the very few voices of dissent that you will find. Mostly the opinions being heard are spokespersons for corporate HR deparments, executives, and immigration lawyers.
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It's a tough, competitive business. If given the choice between a seasoned IT veteran laid off from a position in which he worked for 10 years and who has not updated his skills, and a recent H-1B tech graduate from Bangalore, New Delhi, Bombay or Calcutta, Prasad said, he would go for the latter.
Tracy Koon, director of corporate affairs for Intel of Santa Clara, said it is seeking a number of highly educated computer engineers and others and can't find them in this country. ``We don't have enough U.S. students going into these programs,'' she said. ``This is a competitiveness issue for us.''
"Talent does not recognize geographic borders or country of origin. If we want to be competitive on the world stage, we need to raise the H-1B cap," Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) said in a statement. "Maintaining a cap that is so low that it is met before the year even begins makes no sense; it only helps our foreign competitors."
If there is a shortage of qualified tech workers here, then failing to allow foreign workers to fill the gap will only accelerate the shift of jobs overseas and further erode American competitiveness in technology. Shutting out highly skilled foreigners who were trained at U.S. universities, often at taxpayers' expense, would be particularly stupid.
"America's well-kept secret is that it has rarely produced enough American-born workers with the requisite science and engineering background to support its knowledge economy," said John Palafoutas of the American Electronics Association.
In a statement issued by Compete America, a coalition of more than 200 corporations, universities, research institutions and trade associations, Sandy Boyd of the National Association of Manufacturers said the real problem is the lack of trained U.S. workers.
With the pain of the recession's widespread layoffs barely in the past, it is hard to believe an I.T. worker shortage could again be just around the corner. Five years ago, the business and technical press were full of stories about the lack of skilled I.T. professionals. The topic was a perennial favorite, right up until the economy tanked. But the signposts to a coming I.T. worker shortage are rooted in fact.
The steep decline in I.T. students is at least partly attributable to a largely unseen but persuasive factor: parents.
One of the genuine plusses in our convoluted immigration laws is the H-1B visa.
United States authorities have suspended the grant of B-1H class entry visas for hi-tech professionals on the grounds that the United States has already filled its quota under the category throughout 2006. "It is a hard blow for Israeli hi-tech," says attorney Noam Schwartz, who specializes in emigration and work visas to the U.S.
Even a blind man can see that the limitation on H-1B visa numbers is out of sync with reality.
Abolish the H-1B cap. Any numerical limit is wholly artificial, based more on what is politically possible, not economically necessary. Let the market determine how many H cases employers need.
Listen to Lou Dobbs any night of the week and this lethal combination of populism and nationalism
Angelo Amador, director of immigration policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said companies must rely on foreign employees because of the nation's low unemployment rate and a shortage in specialized workers domestically. "There's a shortage of these kind of workers with special degrees and special education in the work force," Amador said.
**** One of the Few Voices of Reason ****
But Ira Mehlman, a spokesman with the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said it's wrong for U.S. companies to be wooing foreigners when there are so many skilled U.S. workers who have been laid off in recent years. ``Something is not right,'' Mehlman said. ``That's not the way the system ought to work. Go find them, get them back, before you start looking all over the world for workers.''
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Article 1:
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050815/BUSINESS/508150304/1003/SPORTS
Searching for skills
Article 2:
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/12375452.htm
H-1B visa limits reached for '06
Article 3:
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3527631
Game Over: Next Year's H1-B Visas Already Gone
Article 4:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/12381485.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
More or fewer? Let's get some facts and then decide
Article 5:
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=119639&Sn=BUSI&IssueID=28150
US visa quotas spark fresh debate
Article 6:
http://www.toptechnews.com/news/I-T--Staff-Shortage-Looming/story.xhtml?story_id=033003CMT0JU
I.T. Staff Shortage Looming
Article 7:
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/editorial/12356766.htm
Allow more skilled workers into U.S.
Article 8:
http://www.ilw.com/lawyers/articles/2005,0817-endelman.shtm
More H-1B Numbers By Themselves Are Not The Answer
Article 9:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050813/BUSINESS/508130422/1003
U.S. closes door on specialized visas
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http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050815/BUSINESS/508150304/1003/SPORTS
Searching for skills
Many employers say they need visas to bring in high-tech workers from abroad. But critics contend the process has been abused.
Published in the Asbury Park Press 08/15/05
BY LORRAINE ASH
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
The way Manoj Prasad sees it, he came to the United States from his native India to fill a void.
When he came to the United States in 1995, he was one of 65,000 specialized workers who got an H-1B visa that year to work at a specific job.
Like all H-1Bs, he was not considered an immigrant. His stay had a time limit - three years, with the likely promise of a three-year extension.
Filling voids, supplementing the American work force. That was the intent of H-1B legislation in the United States where, some industry leaders contend, there is a dearth of workers capable of filling cutting-edge positions in technology, science and engineering.
But not every economist is so sure that is how H-1Bs are playing out.
For Prasad, moving across the world from his Indian hometown of Hyderabad worked out well. He had family in Parsippany, where many Indians have settled, and gravitated to nearby Edison, another Indian enclave.
"The quality of life is much better here, so a person who comes on a visa to work can at last have a single focus on the job," he said. "He can work much better in the U.S. than in India because here, everything is nice and he does not have to worry about whether his family can drink the water. He does not worry about pollution or health issues, as people must do in developing countries."
He smiled and sat back in the Edison office of his company, NexGen Infosys, which devises and delivers information-technology solutions for other businesses. "That's why people call America the Land of Opportunity," he said.
Prasad has settled in domestically, having gone through the green-card process and become an American citizen. He lives in Holmdel, where he raises his family, and a corner of his pristine office in a typical suburban office park in Edison features a low red and gold table, a daily reminder of the Hindu goddess Tulja.
"My father told me to have the power of discrimination to know right from wrong and to become a good human being," Prasad said. "Tulja is the one from whom we get strength to do the right thing."
A coconut sits at the center of the table. It symbolizes auspicious times and circumstances, he explained.
Unlike Prasad, most H1-B visa workers do not stay in America. "About 60 percent of the people will have plans to go back to their countries after working here for some time," he said. "These people want to be close to their family. They are very, very emotional sort of people."
NexGen has 75 employees - 45 in New Jersey and California and 30 in his hometown of Hyderabad. Half of his U.S.-based workers are H-1B visa workers.
Making a choice
It's a tough, competitive business. If given the choice between a seasoned IT veteran laid off from a position in which he worked for 10 years and who has not updated his skills, and a recent H-1B tech graduate from Bangalore, New Delhi, Bombay or Calcutta, Prasad said, he would go for the latter.
Many people agree with Prasad. Congress sets the caps for the number of H-1B visas that can be issued each year in the United States. A high was reached from 2001 through 2003, when 195,000 H-1Bs were approved. Starting last year, the cap went back down to 65,000 again, although it was just raised by another 20,000.
The additional 20,000 must have earned at least a master's degree at a U.S. institution of higher learning - an attempt, industry spokespeople have said, to encourage U.S.-cultivated talent to stay in the United States at a time when Europe, India and China are enhancing their schools.
With better schools in more countries, and more opportunity for highly educated workers abroad, it is increasingly difficult for the United States to attract and keep talent in its borders, said Sandra Boyd, chair of Compete America, a coalition of 200 companies, colleges and associations.
Fifty percent of those studying at the master's level in the United States are foreign nationals, said Boyd, also vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers.
"At the Ph.D. level, it's two-thirds," she added. "We want them to work here."
H-1B visa applications are processed by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), part of the Department of Homeland Security. Those that are approved go to the U.S. State Department, which issues visas to those who qualify.
That's a whole lot of processing for a whole lot of visa workers. There were between 746,000 and 1.14 million H-1B visa holders working in the U.S. in fiscal year 2003, according to compiled statistical estimates from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Clearly, it's time-consuming to find, sponsor and fund the arrival of an H-1B visa worker. Expensive, too, which is why Prasad said he would much rather hire local talent if such were available, which would spare him the expense of paying $4,500 per H-1B worker.
"Even regular processing is simply too expensive," Prasad said. "It once was $135, but now it varies, depending on the size of the company, between $750 and $1,500. Including attorneys' fees, the average cost is about $2,000. Premium processing, which is what I use, costs $1,000 more. We also pay even more to fly the person here and get him set up."
And H-1Bs cannot be hired to do any work that requires security clearance, Prasad said.
Looking for a mix
The ideal staff, then, for Prasad and for others in the tech industry, is a mix of workers - local and H-1B. As a business owner and an American, he prefers bringing in an H-1B worker to fill a domestic job than offshoring that job.
But Eileen Appelbaum, an economist and member of a National Research Council committee that studied the impact of H-1Bs on the U.S. economy, does not accept the way the H-1B option is typically framed: One can have an H-1B worker in an American job, or lose that job to exportation.
"Industry said in 2001, "Let us have the H-1B visas and we'll do the work here, or you can say no and we'll just move the work offshore,' " she said. "Well, they got all the H-1Bs they wanted, and they still moved work offshore. In 2005, that's an argument industry can't make with a straight face."
One thing is clear: The rules for forming the best possible workforce are complex and evolving in an economic world in which the playing field changes all the time.
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http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/12375452.htm
Posted on Sat, Aug. 13, 2005
H-1B visa limits reached for '06
BUSINESSES SEEK MORE POSITIONS
By Steve Johnson
Mercury News
Federal officials said Friday that all 65,000 of next fiscal year's H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers have been snapped up, the earliest that has ever happened.
The announcement immediately prompted business interests to call for expanding the number of visas offered, while opponents argued that the program should be significantly scaled back.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service said it has received petitions for all of the fiscal 2006 H-1B visas that become valid Oct. 1. Last year, the cap for the visa program -- which is designed for foreigners with engineering, computer science and other technical specialties -- wasn't hit until October.
Tracy Koon, director of corporate affairs for Intel of Santa Clara, said it is seeking a number of highly educated computer engineers and others and can't find them in this country.
``We don't have enough U.S. students going into these programs,'' she said. ``This is a competitiveness issue for us.''
A lot of other U.S. companies are in the same boat, according to Harris Miller, president of the Virginia-based Information Technology Association of America.
``The H-1B visa program is important to U.S. competitiveness in high technology,'' Miller said in a statement issued Friday. ``We believe a significant increase is required to meet the need for specialized skills and keep companies -- and, as a result, jobs for U.S. workers -- growing at a steady pace.''
But Ira Mehlman, a spokesman with the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said it's wrong for U.S. companies to be wooing foreigners when there are so many skilled U.S. workers who have been laid off in recent years.
``Something is not right,'' Mehlman said. ``That's not the way the system ought to work. Go find them, get them back, before you start looking all over the world for workers.''
Congress has adjusted the annual limit on H-1B workers several times in recent years in conjunction with the rise and fall of the economy. It boosted the cap to 115,000 in 2000 and 195,000 in 2001, but then dropped it to 65,000 in 2004.
Under a law enacted last year, an additional 20,000 H-1B visas can be used for foreign workers with master's or higher degrees from U.S. colleges and universities. So far, 8,000 of those H-1B visas have been allocated for the 2006 fiscal year.
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http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3527631
Game Over: Next Year's H1-B Visas Already Gone
By Roy Mark
August 15, 2005
Six weeks before the 2006 federal budget year even begins, the allotment of H-1B visas for next year is already exhausted. The visas are limited to workers with graduate degrees from U.S. universities and are a favorite with U.S. technology firms.
The early run on the visas that allow foreign nationals with advanced degrees in science, engineering and technology to work in the United States is likely to bring another demand by the Silicon Valley to increase the number of H1-B workers.
"Talent does not recognize geographic borders or country of origin. If we want to be competitive on the world stage, we need to raise the H-1B cap," Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) said in a statement. "Maintaining a cap that is so low that it is met before the year even begins makes no sense; it only helps our foreign competitors."
Under current law the program is capped at 65,000, down from 195,000 in FY 2003. The 2005 cap was reached on Oct. 1, 2004 -- the first day of the federal government's new fiscal year. Under pressure from the technology industry, Congress added another 20,000 to the 2005 allotment in November of last year.
"We believe a significant increase is required to meet the need for specialized skills and keep companies -- and as a result jobs for U.S. workers -- growing at a steady pace," Miller said.
Lynn Shotwell, executive director of the American Council on International Personnel, praised Congress for the extra allocation last year, but emphasized it didn't solve any long term problems.
"That was crisis control and we are deeply appreciative, but [the cap announcement],,, illustrates that a more fundamental problem exists," Lynn said in a statement. "We're nearly two months away from the start of the fiscal year and we've hit the general H-1B cap. Every indication is we will use up all the 20,000 exemptions by the end of the fall."
In a statement issued by Compete America, a coalition of more than 200 corporations, universities, research institutions and trade associations, Sandy Boyd of the National Association of Manufacturers said the real problem is the lack of trained U.S. workers.
"We need to do more as a nation to encourage American students to pursue degrees in math, science, engineering and technology disciplines," she said. "America has a long tradition of growing its own talent while welcoming it from across the globe. Government policy needs to reflect that tradition."
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http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/12381485.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
Posted on Sun, Aug. 14, 2005
More or fewer? Let's get some facts and then decide
Mercury News Editorial
Silicon Valley employers seeking to bring in skilled foreign workers in 2006 will find a ``sold out'' sign at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, the agency that grants visas.
As of Friday, two months before the start of fiscal 2006, all of the 65,000 H-1B visas allowed for the year had been taken. Like last year, the visas, which are used by engineers, computer programmers and other knowledge workers, will have been gone by Oct. 1, the first day of the next fiscal year.
This will reignite a years-old debate between the tech industry and groups representing U.S. engineers and other information technology workers. The industry says it can't find enough skilled workers here and argues that Congress should raise the visa cap. The U.S. worker groups say the visas are being misused by some companies, which bring in foreign workers at lower wages while qualified U.S. workers remain unemployed or underemployed.
The debate won't be settled until Congress agrees to shed more light on the H-1B visa program. It should require reporting on the number, wages, educational background, job categories and length of stay of H-1B workers at each firm.
With this data each year, any misuse would quickly come to light, and the need for the visas -- or lack of need -- would become clearer. The impact of guest workers on the U.S. labor market would be easier to analyze. And if guest workers really are needed, tech companies would have an easier time making their case.
This is an important issue for the valley and for the American economy.
If there is a shortage of qualified tech workers here, then failing to allow foreign workers to fill the gap will only accelerate the shift of jobs overseas and further erode American competitiveness in technology. Shutting out highly skilled foreigners who were trained at U.S. universities, often at taxpayers' expense, would be particularly stupid.
But if H-1B visas are being used to import low-paid foreign workers for jobs that American workers easily could fill, the negative impact on the U.S. economy will be both immediate and long lasting. Not only will U.S. engineers remain unemployed, but young people also will be discouraged from pursuing science and engineering degrees, further undermining U.S. competitiveness and leadership in technology.
Striking the right balance is critical. It will be impossible without better data, and only Congress can mandate it.
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http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=119639&Sn=BUSI&IssueID=28150
US visa quotas spark fresh debate
Published: 17 August 2005
WASHINGTON: The US government has filled its allotment of 65,000 visas for the 2006 fiscal year for foreign workers with special skills, prompting renewed debate over the need for high-tech workers from abroad.Figures from US Citizenship and Immigration Services showed the 65,000 limit for the so-called H-1B visa programme was reached last week for the fiscal year starting October 1.
There remain some 12,000 visas under a provision for foreigners with doctorates or masters' degrees. But high-tech industry representatives say the rapid filling of the main quota suggests the US is failing to get enough qualified engineers and technical workers.
The workers with H-1B visas come from many countries and industries, but historically a large number have been high-tech specialists from India, with significant numbers from China, South Korea and the Philippines.
"America's well-kept secret is that it has rarely produced enough American-born workers with the requisite science and engineering background to support its knowledge economy," said John Palafoutas of the American Electronics Association.
"Our safety valve has been the H-1B visa program, which was designed to augment the workforce.' The tech industry says the latest figures point to a need for expanding the visa programme.
"Denying entry of the world's most highly educated talent into the United States is taking its toll," said Palafoutas.
"We should be stapling green cards to the diplomas of every foreign national who graduates from a US educational institution with a masters or PhD, and we should keep the world's best and brightest here in the US to help strengthen our economy.'
But critics say the system is being abused by companies to bring in foreigners at lower wages even when there are qualified Americans available.
Jack Martin of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group aimed at curbing both legal and illegal immigration, said companies are taking advantage of the H-1B program for purposes not intended under the law.
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http://www.toptechnews.com/news/I-T--Staff-Shortage-Looming/story.xhtml?story_id=033003CMT0JU
I.T. Staff Shortage Looming
August 15, 2005 12:55PM
The steep decline in I.T. students is at least partly attributable to a largely unseen but persuasive factor: parents. Just a few years ago, technology was a glamorous destination, but thanks to its role in the dot-corn boom, many now see it as a dead letter. The perception is that all the good I.T. jobs are in India and China.
Last year, Phil Zweig needed to fill two critical roles in his I.T. organization at Northwestern Mutual -- one in identity management and one in mainframe system support. Zweig, vice president of I.T. for the Milwaukee firm, began to get antsy when those slots had not been filled in the usual timeframe of two to three months. "It was taking us about five to six-plus months, double what I would like to see," he says.
In itself, that might not seem like a big deal, but Zweig has his eye on the bigger picture. As vice president of advocacy and communities of interest for the Society for Information Management (SIM), he heads up a research project that is examining the combined effects of radically dropping enrollment in I.T. programs at the undergraduate level and the first wave of baby boomer retirements. "Between the retirements that are coming and the reduction in computer science students, we're in a very difficult position," he says.
Zweig is part of a growing number of I.T. leaders who are concerned it will be increasingly difficult to find people with hot skills such as project management. Without enough future I.T. professionals in the pipeline -- and with thousands of older employees leaving the workforce -- the U.S. could be left high and dry when it comes to technology innovation. And that could sap economic growth.
Gartner estimates six out of 10 corporate I.T. professionals will assume business-facing roles by 2010. By that same year, I.T. organizations at midsize and large companies will be at least one-third smaller than they were in 2000, according to Gartner. In five years. 10 percent to 15 percent of I.T. professionals will drop out of the field altogether, the firm forecasts. These predictions portend a clouded future for an important sector of the U.S. economy.
"Where will the next wave of technology creation come from? Will the U.S. be able to sustain its leadership? What will happen if there's no one left to hire here?" says Nancy Markle, past president of SIM and a current board member. Markle was previously a CIO at Arthur Anderson.
Declining Enrollment
With the pain of the recession's widespread layoffs barely in the past, it is hard to believe an I.T. worker shortage could again be just around the corner. Five years ago, the business and technical press were full of stories about the lack of skilled I.T. professionals. The topic was a perennial favorite, right up until the economy tanked.
But the signposts to a coming I.T. worker shortage are rooted in fact. The fact, for example, that undergraduate enrollment in computer science programs has dropped 7 percent for each of the last two years, according to the Taulbee Survey of the Computing Research Association (CRA). Further up the pipeline, the number of students who declared their major in computer science has declined for the past four years and is now 39 percent lower than in the fall of 2000.
Kate Kaiser, associate professor at Milwaukee's Marquette University, teaches a basic computer science course, among others. "In 2001, this class had two sections and 48 students. This fall I had one section and 12 students," says Kaiser, who is conducting interviews with I.T. managers as part of the SIM research project. "It's too bad -- I think everyone should love this field," she says.
The steep decline in I.T. students is at least partly attributable to a largely unseen but persuasive factor: parents. Just a few years ago, technology was a glamorous destination, but thanks to its role in the dot-corn boom, many now see it as a dead letter. The perception is that all the good I.T. jobs are in India and China, and they're not coming back any time soon. "Parents influence the field their kids go into. Right now, they view I.T. as too unstable," says Diane Berry managing vice president for Gartner's human capital management practice.
"The adults in these kids' lives are perpetrating the wrong information. That is only making things worse," says Joey George, professor in the MIS department at the College of Business, Florida State University, in Tallahassee. "These jobs are starting to come back."
No Cause for Concern?
In fairness, some people believe the alarms about a looming I.T. worker shortage are akin to Chicken Little's warnings about the sky falling. John Glaser, vice president and CIO for Partners HealthCare System in Boston, is not currently experiencing a crunch, and he's not overly concerned about the dropping rates of computer science students, either.
"It is not clear to me how much of an impact [the declining I.T. student enrollment] will have. Many of our technical people received their education at community colleges, vocational schools or through on-the-job training as they shift careers. I don't know how many of our recent hires have followed a computer science path through college," Glaser says. Recently however, he has seen I.T. staff turnover rates increase from 3 percent to 7 percent to 8 percent.
Though CRA research indicates a sharply reduced supply of computer science students in the U.S., Jay Vegso, manager of membership and information services, stops short of declaring an I.T. worker crunch. "Predicting demand [for I.T. workers] is very difficult and has been botched before," Vegso says.
There are other countervailing factors. The U.S. government might soon elect to increase again the number of H-1B visas, allowing additional foreign workers to take I.T. jobs here. Companies might do a better job of developing non-technical professionals to join the I.T. ranks. Outsourcing and automation will almost certainly consume an increasing number of I.T. jobs going forward.
No one knows for sure what effect these forces will have in a year or two. Large companies are not reporting huge gaps in their available I.T. skills today, but tomorrow could be another matter.
Where the Gaps Are
It is impossible to precisely know in advance whether the coming shortage will be severe, but there are some best practices I.T. managers should implement now if they haven't already experts advise.
Topping the list is an I.T. skills inventory This is exactly what it sounds like -- evaluating what skills are currently in-house, what skills might be needed in the next five years and putting together a plan to bridge that gap. "Companies need to come up with a workforce plan that details how they can continue to meet their own changing needs," says Andy Walker, research director for Gartner.
The skills inventory will immediately spotlight the most pressing skills now and for the near term. Networks are still a hot area, and for most organizations finding someone who combines technical savvy with soft skills is an ongoing challenge. People with project management experience and the ability to thrive working in virtual global teams are in desperately short supply. "Companies need both business and technical skills but the business skills are harder to find," Berry says.
Many companies have instinctively dealt with a potential worker shortage by extending the working life of people who found they couldn't retire when they wanted because of the economy. "We got an extra few years out of them," Walker says. That is a good way to keep legacy systems going until they need to be replaced, he adds, but is a temporary fix.
Creative Solutions Needed
On a macro level, Zweig believes the long-term solution to an I.T. worker shortage is to reach out not just to university students but also high school and middle schools. "We have to get students enthused about entering I.T. This is not a dying profession," Zweig says. SIM is working on school outreach efforts with its more than 30 nationwide chapters.
As for CIOs who are concerned about how to fill their spots in the coming years, it might take a mixed, creative approach. "You might outsource some folks and bring some up through the in-house ranks, use contractors for other roles," Walker says. He admits this makes managing the I.T. organization more complex.
But these efforts will be worth it in the long run if they help preserve I.T. jobs in the U.S. economy. "Other countries are pushing for technical education in their countries. If we don't do that here, companies will have no choice but to send the jobs offshore. That's not good for the U.S.," Markle says.
Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America (I.T.AA), heartily concurs. The combination of fewer students and the coming wave of baby boomer retirements threatens American competitiveness, he says. "It's a myth that the smart people only live in the U.S. The advantages that we had in the field of technology were never going to last forever," Miller says.
Miller believes turning the situation around requires a "major wake-up call" on the part of government and private industry. Everyone needs to support the next generation in seeing I.T. as a vibrant, growing occupation, or else the tradition of technology innovation will perish. "We're like the frog sitting in the slowly boiling pot. It is happening so slowly no one notices but pretty soon we're going to be dinner," he says.
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http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/editorial/12356766.htm
Posted on Thu, Aug. 11, 2005
Allow more skilled workers into U.S.
Scripps Howard editorial
One of the genuine plusses in our convoluted immigration laws is the H-1B visa. This allows highly educated foreigners with special skills - engineers, mathematicians, scientists, doctors, nurses, teachers, computer programmers - to live and work in this country for up to six years.
It allows employers to fill jobs where there is a shortage of qualified applicants and, since the H-1B holders can earn permanent residency, it creates a pool of people likely to become valued citizens.
Labor unions have complained that the H-1B visas are a source of cheap labor that take the jobs of some Americans and cut the wage rates of others. But the law requires that the foreigners be paid prevailing wages for the job and that the employer prove no U.S. citizen is available for the work.
The demand is there. Congress caps the number of H-1B visas at 65,000 but for three years running it had to triple the number available to 195,000.
Once again, demand is bumping up against the limit. Congress should raise the limit on these visas to a more realistic level that balances demand and supply. And its only self-interest. Better to have these workers holding jobs here than to have employers ship those same jobs over there.
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http://www.ilw.com/lawyers/articles/2005,0817-endelman.shtm
More H-1B Numbers By Themselves Are Not The Answer
by Gary Endelman
It did not take long for the next H-1B emergency campaign to start. Within hours of the USCIS announcement on Friday, August 12, 2005, that the H-1B cap for fiscal year 2006 had been reached two days earlier, business and the immigration bar were launching their most recent appeal for more numbers. The fact that this was the earliest the cap had ever been reached, some six weeks before FY 2006 even began, doubtless added to the palpable sense of shock. It is undeniably true, as leading immigration expert Sheila Murthy observes in the August 12th issue of her wonderful newsletter, that this development may "result in the outsourcing of projects by employers who cannot wait more than a year from today for temporary workers to start employment. This could prove to be more detrimental to the US economy in the long run." Even a blind man can see that the limitation on H-1B visa numbers is out of sync with reality. Yet, precisely because the emergency is fast upon us, should not cloud the fact that it was entirely predictable, nor make us believe that more H numbers will solve the problem. Indeed, they will not. What they will do is defer a solution, thereby aggravating the structural dislocation that continues to plague the H and make it less useful than it might be for business, aliens, and American workers. Only in the context of true and meaningful H reform should more numbers be provided.
Those who call for H numbers and nothing more are fooling themselves and doing their clients a disservice. There is no way that Christmas will come early on this issue nor should it. What are we prepared to give up in return? How do we want the H to change? Only when we answer both threshold questions will the argument for H visa reform become sustainable. Pro-immigration advocates have lost control over the cultural debate on immigration and allowed themselves to be falsely depicted by increasingly vocal restrictionists as the enemies of the American worker. Listen to Lou Dobbs any night of the week and this lethal combination of populism and nationalism comes through loud and clear. Tom Barry, policy director of the International Relations Center, hit the nail on the head of this dilemma in a marvelous paper entitled The Immigration Debate: Politics of Class and Corporations (August 9, 2005) that can be found at http://www.americaspolicy.org. Listen to what he says:
Equally apparent is that the current immigration debate has sidelined Immigration advocates. Especially when the issue is jobs and wage Levels, pro-immigration groups increasingly find themselves fumbling for credible arguments to counter the rising backlash against immigrants... At a time of rising concern about the economic environmental, and social costs of immigration, as well as new concerns about threats to national security coming from an ever-increasing sector of US residents who are not citizens, the pro-immigration forces are increasingly consigned to the margins of the immigration debate.
The H crisis can remain a symbol of open borders and corporate indifference or become an opportunity for pro-immigration groups to realign themselves with the legitimate interests of Americas workers. Rather than settling just for more H numbers, now is precisely the moment to use our present troubles as an opportunity to embrace the unifying vision that Americas immigration policy can be one that is both generous and grounded in the importance of setting limits.
Here is how the strategic realignment can take place:
Abolish the H-1B cap. Any numerical limit is wholly artificial, based more on what is politically possible, not economically necessary. Let the market determine how many H cases employers need.
Eliminate the labor condition application. A symbol of micromanagement at its worst, it is poorly understood and unevenly administered. Its byzantine complexity benefits only lawyers and bureaucrats, but does little to protect American workers and imposes unnatural strains upon the wage structure of the vast majority of honest employers who try in vain to comply.
Make the H-1B Temporary. The H should be valid for three years with no extension possible. Six years, or even more if the employer acts timely to file a labor certification or immigrant petition before the end of the fifth year, is not a temporary visa. It is a halfway house towards the green card. If PERM works the way the DOL promises it will, there is no reason why an H extension should be necessary.
Establish a minimum H-1B wage. Once Congress throws the labor condition application onto the ever-growing scrapheap of failed ideas, where it most properly belongs, there has to be a real way to protect the wages of similarly situated US workers. This is how. No H case should be approved unless and until the sponsoring employer guarantees payment of a minimum wage as set by Congress. While no national standard can ever completely factor in local or regional variations in standard of living, this is a simple and sure way to rebut the spurious charge that employers use the H to get cheap labor.
Ban any H-1B dependent employers. Why should the vast majority of decent employers be burdened by over-regulation aimed at a few job shops? If the latter are the problem, Congress can ban them from sponsoring anyone for an H, thus liberating everyone else and undercutting whatever dim rationale for the LCA remains. No employer who is H-1B dependent should be able to file an H petition. End of story.
Require all H sponsors to prove the alien beneficiary is the most qualified applicant they can hire. Impose the same recruitment obligation that H-1B dependent employers now confront upon all H sponsors. There should be one key difference. Allow the employers to use the same recruitment they have already done to select the alien at time of initial hire and mandate acceptance of the "best qualified" standard that now only applies with university selections. No one in the real world outside the rarefied confines of 20 CFR 656 ever thinks in terms of minimal qualifications. Would you want to drive your car over a bridge designed by a minimally qualified engineer or allow a minimally qualified surgeon to perform open-heart surgery on your mother? The question literally answers itself. It is perfectly fair to ask that employers explain their choice not to hire an American if they are allowed to use real world standards when doing so.
Make the H Completely Portable: Give the alien ownership of his or her own work visa. Allow self-petitioning valid for any employer under the H-1B category. Take the concept of H1B portability all the way to its logical conclusion. Allow the alien to file an H petition much as he or she can now file a national interest waiver or extraordinary ability immigrant petition. The H-1B approval would then truly belong to the H-1B worker and not to the employer who loses any leverage that the market would not otherwise provide. Armed with such a weapon to guard against unreasonable employer demands, the H-1B alien would have no need for a labor condition application, which can be abolished.
Create a Blanket H-1B. Create a blanket H-1B visa that can be applied for directly at a US Consulate, much as it is now possible to apply for a Blanket L visa. Eligibility for this Blanket H should depend on the number of approved H petitions in the past year, the percentage of full-time equivalent H workers in their employ (no eligibility for dependent H employers) and documentation of a demonstrated ability to pay the prevailing wage. No employer who is guilty of a willful or material H wage violation can apply.
Create a Schedule A Occupational List for the H-1B. Does the economy have the same need for all H-1B occupations? The question literally answers itself. Prepare a list of occupations deserving of H approval. This is precisely what USDOL has long since done with labor certification in the form of its Schedule A. Annual revision of the list will keep it current. For those occupations not on the list, they can still get an H visa but only for shorter duration and with no exemption from the intending immigrant presumption found in Section 214(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act
If we do this right, no longer will the restrictionists be able to pose as the champions of US labor. The disappearance of H numbers can be our time to reverse the rising anti-immigrant backlash. We will not do so by talking eloquently about the macroeconomic benefit of immigration to the national economy. An unemployed or underemployed US worker who is worried about sending his kids to college, whose house is mortgaged till the cows come home and whose wife has to work just to keep up with the bills, or worse yet one whose job has already departed for India never to return, wants to hear more than finely nuanced arguments about immigration as a way to enhance productivity, even though this is entirely true. He wants to know we are on his side. Now is a way to tell him. Let the great H-1B crisis of fiscal 2006 be the bond that cements such common cause.
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http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050813/BUSINESS/508130422/1003
U.S. closes door on specialized visas
Yearly quota reached in record time, but holders of U.S. graduate degrees still have shot.
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
Hearst Newspapers
August 13, 2005
WASHINGTON --The federal government on Friday hit its cap on the number of highly skilled foreign workers allowed in the country on H-1B visas next fiscal year, setting a record for reaching the limit so early.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service said it had run out of 65,000 of the visas nearly two months before they are valid, on Oct. 1. This is the earliest the government has hit its cap on H-1B visas, which are reserved for foreigners in specialty occupations, such as engineering, computer science and medicine.
The announcement spurred new calls for Congress to boost the annual limit on H-1B visas. Businesses -- mostly high-tech firms -- that championed expansions of the visa program in the late 1990s argue they need more freedom to fill highly specialized jobs with foreign workers.
Angelo Amador, director of immigration policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said companies must rely on foreign employees because of the nation's low unemployment rate and a shortage in specialized workers domestically.
"There's a shortage of these kind of workers with special degrees and special education in the work force," Amador said.
But critics -- including unions and opponents of expanding immigration -- argue that companies exploit the H-1B visa program to hire foreigners at cheaper salaries than they would pay to domestic workers.
Even though the initial batch of visas has been awarded, companies still have a crack at hiring foreigners who have earned advanced degrees from U.S. schools.
Under a law enacted last year, an additional 20,000 H-1B visas can be used for foreign workers who have received master's or higher degrees from U.S. colleges and universities. So far, 8,000 of those H-1B visas, valid after Oct. 1, have been given out, said Chris Bentley, a spokesman for the Citizenship and Immigration Service.
The H-1B visas are good for up to six years. After that, a foreign worker must leave the country for one year before he or she can reapply for another high-skill visa.
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