High-tech firms seek to end cap on foreign workers
Reuters Story - February 23, 1998 19:31
%US %DPR %BUS %IN %TW %LDC %EMRG MSFT TXN SUNW V%REUTER P%RTR
(Leven is correct in 14th graf)
By Deeann Glamser
SEATTLE, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. and other
high-tech companies, which say they face a critical shortage of
programmers and engineers, this week will ask Congress to
eliminate the hiring cap on foreign professionals.
"This has slowly built to a crisis situation this year,"
Brian Raymond, domestic policy manager for the American
Electronics Association, a trade group representing some 3,000
technology companies, said in a recent interview.
At issue are H-1B visas, allowing non-citizen doctors,
computer programmers and other professionals to work in the
United States for up to six years. The visas are used to fill
shortages of skilled workers, or are for people with
extraordinary talents.
This year, the annual limit of 65,000 H-1B visas is
expected to be hit by June, with no more issued until Oct. 1,
the start of the next federal fiscal year.
Last year, the allotment was gone by September, the first
time the limit was reached.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has a hearing scheduled for
Wednesday on H-1B visas for high-tech workers.
Microsoft, Texas Instruments Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc.
officials will testify in favor of repealing the cap.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA,
the leading U.S. professional group for electrical and
electronics engineers, wants to retain the current limit.
Visa information is sketchy, but 44 percent of
pre-application certifications -- the requests companies make
to the Labor Department as a prerequisite for applying for an
H-1B visa -- in fiscal 1997 were for computer occupations, up
from 25 percent in fiscal 1995.
The next-largest category in fiscal 1997 was physical
therapists, at 26 percent of requests.
The Information Technology Association of America, a trade
association that also opposes the cap, says companies with 100
or more employees have 346,000 openings for programmers,
systems analysts and computer engineers, or 10 percent of the
nation's 3.3 million information-technology jobs.
Semiconductor maker Texas Instruments hires about 150 H-1B
visa holders a year, 10 percent to 15 percent of its annual
technical hires.
Most are graduate students at U.S. universities and become
residents here. The majority are from Taiwan and India.
"These employees are critical. We depend greatly on
electrical engineering talent to build our products," said
Stephen Leven, Texas Instruments director of worldwide human
resources.
Intel Corp. also wants the cap repealed. It hires 300 to
400 foreign design engineers a year, almost a third of the
design engineers it hires annually and about 4 percent of the
slightly more than 10,000 people it hired in 1997.
As at Texas Instruments, most are graduate students
sponsored by the company for residency.
Visa-limit proponents say more U.S. students are enrolling
in engineering and computer sciences as job prospects surge,
and older employees can be retrained for the changing job
market.
"We really believe there is a sufficient amount of people
to satisfy needs in the U.S.," said Paul Kostek, a
Seattle-based consultant and president-elect of the Institute
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA.
Norman Matloff, a computer science professor at the
University of California at Davis, said companies exacerbate
the worker shortage by requiring very specific skills for each
job and preferring males in their 20s and 30s.
"They want them young, and with the latest, hot
technology," Matloff said. "For experienced programmers,
learning a new language is no big deal."
He said visa workers earn less on average than their U.S.
peers and are unlikely to leave a company sponsoring them for
permanent residency.
Microsoft has not released its H-1B figures, but says a mix
of cultural backgrounds is critical in a global marketplace.
"It's important for us to hire the most appropriate workers
to compete," said Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan.
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