There Is No Tech Worker Shortage!

A very interesting post from www.NumbersUSA.com about STEM workers in the U.S. This follows this post about who to contact about opposing Amnesty. This follows this post about how to Report Illegal Immigrants! For more about what you can do click here and you can read two very interesting books HERE.

There Is No Tech Worker Shortage

High-tech companies often cite a tech-worker shortage when asking Congress to raise the 65,000 annual cap on H-1B visas, but according to a study conducted by John Miano and the Center for Immigration Studies there is no empirical data to support that claim. Walt Gardner wrote in the Atlanta Journal Constitution that the United States produces an ample amount of tech workers. In fact, Gardner found that in some years, the number of foreign programmers and engineers imported outnumbered the number of jobs created by the industry.



Other Key facts pertaining to the perceived shortage of tech workers in the United States:



•The number of H-1B visas for engineers has exceeded engineering job creation every year since 2001. (Center for Immigration Studies "H-1B Visa Numbers: No Relationship to Economic Need" June 2008)

•American colleges and universities produce more than enough science, math, and engineering graduates to fill available jobs:

◦"The United States’ education system produces a supply of qualified [science and engineering] graduates in much greater numbers than jobs available." - Harold Salzman, Ph.D. , The Urban Institute

◦"First, no one who has come to the question with an open mind has been able to find any objective data suggesting general 'shortages' of scientists and engineers." - Michael S. Teitelbaum, Vice President, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

◦"Recent policy reports claim the United States is falling behind other nations in science and math education and graduating insufficient numbers of scientists and engineers. Review of the evidence and analysis of actual graduation rates and workforce needs does not find support for these claims." - Urban Institute study Into the Eye of the Storm

◦Before the economic downturn, the Department of Labor predicted an average of 82,000 new STEM jobs every year.

◦Between 2006 and 2007, the U.S. Department of Education and the Computing Research Association show that colleges and universities graduated more than 203,000 students in STEM disciplines.

◦Yet in FY 2006 more than 1 30,000 H-1 B applications for computer-related occupations were reviewed and certified. In FY 2007 and FY 2008 this trend continued with over 1 39,000 and 1 37,000 H-1 B visas, respectively, approved in computer-related occupations.

•Real Wages in science, engineering, computer, and mathematics (STEM) fields have remained flat since 2000. (Gene Nelson)

◦A typical postdoctoral research or teaching position in a STEM field (requiring 12 years of education after high school) offers pay and benefits comparable to what a high school graduate earns managing a fast-food restaurant. (Gene Nelson)

◦Wages of new H-1B computer workers dropped 16 percent between 2002 and 2005. (Ron Hira, Rochester Institute of Technology, Economic Policy Institute)

•20 percent of high-skilled immigrants in the U.S. Labor force is unemployed or working in an unskilled job. (Migration Policy Institute, "Uneven Progress: The Employment Pathways of Skilled Immigrants in the United States" Oct. 2008)

•Studies finding no shortage of engineers in the U.S. include one by Duke University's Vivek Wadhwa and another by Hal Salzman of the Urban Institute and Lindsay Lowell of Georgetown University.

◦The Duke team found that the often-cited (by Sen. Kennedy, Newt Gingrich and others) statistics that the U.S. produces 70,000 engineers annually versus 350,000 from India and 600,000 from China are not valid.

◦They found that the U.S. is far ahead by almost any measure.