Skilled Asian immigrants key to U.S. tech boom
SAN FRANCISCO, June 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. high tech boom is increasingly driven by skilled immigrants from China, Taiwan and India, who now run one out of every four Silicon Valley companies, according to a study released on Wednesday.
''We are seeing dramatic evidence that foreign-born scientists and engineers are making significant and growing economic contributions,'' University of California researcher AnnaLee Saxenian said of her study, conducted for the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC).
Using a customized database, Saxenian found that in 1998 Chinese and Indian engineers were in charge of a total of 2,775 Silicon Valley companies, which accounted for $16.8 billion in sales and more than 58,000 jobs.
The pace of immigrant entrepreneurship also appears to be picking up, she found. Chinese and Indian CEOs ran 13 percent of Silicon Valley companies launched between 1980 and 1984, but 29 percent of those started between 1995 and 1998.
Saxenian said her research was aimed at demonstrating that immigrant entrepreneurs were just as significant in the high tech fields as they are in traditional immigrant industries such as small-scale retail stores and garment manufacturing.
The study may also play a role in the debate over increasing the number of U.S. H1-B visas issued to highly skilled immigrants, the PPIC said, noting that the focus of discussion could shift from how foreign-born workers displace locals to how immigrant entrepreneurs create jobs, wealth, and global economic links.
''Immigrants are contributing to the dynamism of the Silicon Valley economy in unique and important ways,'' Saxenian said.
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