IEEE Article on H-1B Debate

Date: Monday, August 12, 2002 12:14 PM

*** H-1B NEWSLETTER ***

Get the Facts on H-1B at
www.ZaZona.com

I was disappointed when I read the short quote of me in this article. It
almost sounded like I was saying that ITAA has numbers that prove a shortage
so therefore they will start a campaign to lobby to raise the H-1B quota. I
took a lot of time explaining to Terry Costlow why ITAA's statistics are
nothing but surveys from corporate HR departments. The ITAA claim that there
will be another shortage of techies is just plain false. These figures are
manufactured for lobbying efforts and do not reflect the reality of the
labor market.

I also didn't like his characterization of my site as anti-H-1B. My site is
dedicated to the abolition of the H-1B visa and I make it clear that the
people that use those visas shouldn't be blamed for this scandal. Please
refer to http://www.zazona.com/ShameH1B/H1BFAQs.htm#WhoIstoBlameforH-1B for
my statement on "Who is to Blame for H-1B".

I sent a reply to the editor but don't know if it will be printed. There is
one comment at http://www.todaysengineer.org/July02/feedback.htm

http://www.todaysengineer.org/July02/h-1b.htm

The H-1B Debate Continues As U.S. EEs Face Uncertain Employment Future

by Terry Costlow

Just as during the economic boom cycle, the intermingled issues of jobs and
immigration are continuing to stir up emotions during the current slump.
While Congress won't debate the quota for H-1B immigrants until next year,
there's already a barrage of conflicting data as corporations, engineers and
others debate the need for H-1B workers.

While there's controversy over the need for guest workers, everyone agrees
that the past year or so has been tough on engineers regardless of whether
they're citizens or not. "We're at the worst EE unemployment level since it
was a bit over 30,000 at the end of 1994 — the end of the early '90s
recession," said Bob Rivers, editor of the Orange, Mass.-based Technology
Employment Newsletter. Rivers noted that there were 30,000 unemployed
engineers in the first quarter of this year, compared to an average of 8,000
to 10,000 during the latter half of the 1990s.

Record Engineering Unemployment Spurs
IEEE-USA Call for Congressional Action

Responding to rising unemployment rates for U.S. engineers and computer
scientists, IEEE-USA sent a 12 July letter to all Members of Congress asking
them to conduct a field hearing or town hall meeting in their districts
during the August district work period to gather input on the situation from
engineers and other high-tech professionals...more

But the two camps that have been sparring over the need for guest workers
don't agree on much else. One side argues that there aren't enough U.S.
workers, so they have to go outside to get talent. The other side charges
that guest workers are brought in mainly because they work for lower wages.

Proponents of the H-1B program note that only 163,000 H-1B visas were issued
in the government's last fiscal year. That's well below the current cap,
which was raised to 195,000 visas in 2001, up from 115,000 in 2000.

"If foreign workers were that much cheaper, we would have seen the cap hit.
It fell 32,000 short," said Mark Shevitz, marketing director at VisaNow.com
in Chicago. "Relocation, legal fees and the time it takes for processing add
a lot of expense with H-1Bs," he noted.

Those who feel there are enough technical workers in the United States
contend that since the cap only allowed 115,000 H-1Bs into the country
during the prior year, the 163,000 figure means that 48,000 additional guest
workers arrived during a recession year.

"Clearly the employers' claims of needing visas to remedy a 'labor shortage'
were merely pretext to hire cheap foreign labor," said Norm Matloff, a
University of Calif.-Davis computer science professor who's outspoken on
this issue. He said that the increase is even greater than 48,000, since
last year there were several exempt categories that did not exist the year
before.

Will the Cap Go Up or Down?

While the debate roils, it's calm now compared to what's expected next year,
when Congress will take up the issue of where to set the number of visas for
the next few years. When the cap was raised to 195,000, it was set to revert
to 65,000 at the start of Fiscal Year 2004 — or 1 October 2003. That's now
not expected to happen, but where the level will be set is the subject of
much debate. Some observers predict that despite the current slowdown,
corporate America will push to have the cap raised even higher. Others say
that won't be the case.

A spokeswoman at the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA),
an Arlington, Va.-based group that is considered the leading proponent of
importing foreign workers, said the group has not yet polled its members to
find out what they want to do about the upcoming legislation. In May, ITAA
predicted that there will be 1.1 million new jobs during the coming 12
months and that about 600,000 of them would go unfilled because there are
not enough skilled workers to fill them. That's got some people thinking
ITAA will push for an increase in the cap.

"With the figures they're putting out, there's no question that there will
be a massive campaign to raise the cap next year," said Rob Sanchez, creator
of an anti-H-1B website.

Many observers have questioned the latest ITAA predictions, saying that the
economy isn't expected to rebound quickly enough to create more than a
million new IT jobs by May 2003. Some note that even as the dot-com bust
sparked the latest recession, ITAA was predicting substantial job growth. In
April 2001, the group predicted that despite the economic slowdown, there
would be 900,000 new jobs created, and that 425,000 would go unfilled. But
in this year's study, the ITAA said that IT firms laid off 2.6 million
workers and hired 2.1 million during 2001, as the size of the IT workforce
shrank from 10.4 million to 9.9 million.

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