For High Tech, Getting Workers Is Now a Crisis
| Author | William T.Archey ,Josh James |
| Position | President and CEO of American Electronics Association (AeA),Senior Research Manager |
| Pages | 03 |
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William T.Archey ,President and CEO of American Electronics Association (AeA), the nation's largest technology trade association with 2,500 member companies representing all segments of the high-tech industry.
Josh James,Senior Research Manager at American Electronics Association (AeA).
Very few Members of Congress seem to understand one of the less talked about but equally portentous consequences of the recent death of the immigration bill: it has put the high-tech industry into a crisis by continuing to deny it the ability to attract the best and brightest talent from around the world.
The issue of high skilled, legal immigration, which allows companies to bring highly educated workers to the United States on temporary H-1B visas or permanent employment-based green cards, received little media attention. But in terms of American economic and technological prowess, it will have a huge impact. Nobody on Capitol Hill seems to understand this.
The failure of Congress to act on high skilled immigration means that companies will not have access to the qualified workers they need and some will be forced to move offshore-not because the labor is cheaper, not because the market is bigger, but because that is where the talent is.
Since the Sputnik crisis-the 50th anniversary of which was October 4th of this year-America has been the beneficiary of being able to attract the best minds in the world to come work in the United States. 9/11 slowed that flow dramatically. It also slowed the creation of jobs and wealth that foreign-born scientists and engineers spawned over the last 50 years.
The inability to obtain these visas is compounded by a simple fact. Fewer American kids are choosing engineering as a major. U.S. universities awarded 79,700 bachelors degrees in engineering in 2005, down 22 percent from a high of 97,100 in 1986, according to the Department of Education. 1 For graduate engineering degrees, Americans receive only half of all masters and one-third of all doctorates awarded.2
The rest go to foreign nationals, and without visas waiting for them upon graduation, they have to leave the country. Let's look at the other data:
* The U.S. high-tech industry lost over a million net jobs between 2000 and 2004.3 But between 2004 and 2006 the industry added 250,000 net new jobs.4 This job growth would have been substantially higher if qualified individuals, American or foreign-born, were available.5
* The official U.S...
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