Does the U.S. Need to Import Professional Workers?

• Author: MASTERS, SUZETTE BROOKS
• Position: H-1B visa program permits hiring of foreign nationals

"In a global marketplace where skilled employees are in short supply, nations will be forced to compete for them. The U.S. would be foolish to forgo its strategic advantage by unduly restricting the flow of skilled workers to this country."

FOR ALMOST 50 YEARS, the U.S. economy has benefited from the contributions of H-1B foreign-national professionals. These persons are highly qualified professional workers who have been authorized to work for American employers on a temporary basis, not to exceed six years. When no suitable individual is available domestically, the H-1B visa has allowed businesses to use capable and often exceptional professionals from abroad in a wide range of fields, including information technology, finance, and science. In today's booming economy, as U.S. employers struggle to find enough skilled professionals, the H-1B program helps assure continued economic prosperity. Without major increases in this vital immigration status, the competitiveness of U.S. companies in the global marketplace will be undermined.

The U.S. is the economic envy of the world. A dynamic tradition of accepting and successfully integrating successive waves of immigrants has made it the beneficiary of the world's most talented and renowned scientists, economists, engineers, mathematicians, computer scientists, and other professionals. Those immigrants have made major contributions, particularly in the high-tech sector. Recent studies that have measured the magnitude of those contributions have confirmed that immigration creates wealth and increases the size of the economy overall.

Of all the foreign workers coming to the U.S., no category provides such an instant boost to the economy as do H-1B professionals. Unlike their permanent counterparts, they offer the advantage of enabling employers to meet immediate labor needs. Employers can hire H-1Bs in months or even weeks. In contrast, it can take four years or more to qualify someone for permanent green card status. With unemployment at a peacetime, postwar low of four percent, the resulting tight labor market has made the H-1B status even more important to U.S. companies of all sizes.

Perhaps no industry presents a stronger case for increased usage of H-1Bs than does information technology (IT). The evidence is overwhelming that there is currently a serious shortage in the U.S. of IT professionals, one that is projected to become even more severe over the next several years. The Information Technology Association of America released a study in April, 2000, which showed that there are 850,000 high-tech job vacancies nationwide.

The explosive growth of high-tech jobs will likely continue through the next decade. In a June, 1999, study, the U.S. Department of Commerce underscored the importance of the IT sector to the economy, predicting that 1,400,000 new workers, or nearly 250,000 a year, would be required to meet the projected demand for information technology workers through 2006. Similarly, the Department of Labor projects the need for 200,000 new hires per year in the high-tech sector for each of the next 10 years.

The H-1B...