Tancredo's Turkey - the "Be Real Act of 2003" Part 2

Date: Wednesday, November 26, 2003 3:52 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

Rep. Tom Tancredo's unreal act can be examined by going to the
following website and entering:
http://thomas.loc.gov/
H.R. 3534

My nomination for the most bone-headed portion of Tancredo's bill must
go be this section, it's truly a #1 fiasco:

SEC. 211. INTERNET-BASED JOB POSTING SYSTEM.

(f) REPORTS; CESSATION OF LABOR CERTIFICATIONS
BASED ON UNEMPLOYMENT RATE.

If the unemployment rate rises above 5 percent in a particular
occupational category in a geographic region in which more than
15 percent of new hires are such nonimmigrants, no applications
under section 212(n)(1) of such Act (as amended by section 212(g)
of this Act) for such nonimmigrants for that occupation and
region shall be approved until the unemployment rate falls below
five percent.

What this means in plain English is that there are no limits on the
number of H visas that can be issued unless the unemployment rate for a
given job category, in a given region, reaches 5 percent.

I asked Robert Rivers of the American Engineering Association
(http://www.aea.org) what a 5% unemployment rate would mean for
engineers. Here is his bleak assessment:

The average unemployment level in the engineering categories
is about 1.7% corresponding to 5% in the general population in
level of severity. Above 2% we have problems and above 3% it
is severe. At 6% it is a crisis. Full employment is 0.9%

Robert Rivers has analyzed engineering unemployment for years. He uses
a simple formula for determining what the real unemployment rate for
electrical engineers is versus the published unemployment rate - the
real rate is 3.3 times higher. Simply put, Tancredo is willing to
accept a 16.5% unemployment rate for these engineers! (Scroll down to
read how Rivers arrives at this number).

Forcing this nation to accept a 5% unemployment rate is reprehensible,
but Tancredo's even far worse than the assessment by Rivers. That's
because Tancredo gives employers a huge loophole by allowing them to
spread the pain of unemployment among different occupational categories
and regions. It's a blank check with no limits! Looks take a look at
what that really means.

According to the BLS (scroll down to see the categories) there are over
50 categories of computer/IT and engineering. If an employer, for
example, wanted to hire a "computer programmer" but the unemployment
rate was 5% for that category, they could just switch the category to
"software engineer" or "systems analysts". They could even call the job
position "electrical engineering" since many EEs do nothing but coding
anyway. As another example, if an employer wanted an H visa for a civil
engineer but unemployment was 5%, they could switch to many other
categories, even "Miscellaneous Engineers" or "Engineers, All Other".

The switching game that employers can play gets even worse when
geographic region is considered. If an employer, for example, wanted to
hire a "Industrial Engineer" but the employment was 5% in Los Angeles,
they could hire him in Riverside instead if the unemployment rate there
was below 5%. I just visited Los Angeles and I couldn't tell when it
ended and Riverside began, and employers won't care either!

Since employers are allowed to play this game of musical chairs, and
you can bet if I figured this loophole out they will, the number of H
visas issued for most jobs, including high-tech will be almost
unlimited. There is just no way the Dept. of Labor or any other agency
in our government will be able to manage the cheating that will occur
by using the unemployment rate In a future newsletter there will be a
look at the how few investigations are mandated, and how little money
will be available the investigate fraud.

There is one more fundamental issue that must be mentioned: the
unemployment rate is suseptible to political manipulation because it's
nothing more than a statistic. Don't think for a minute that
money-laden lobbyists won't change the way unemployment is calculated
if it suits their needs for more visas.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, but be sure not to choke on this turkey
legislation!

Analysis by Robert Rivers:

In special study of a different kind only For the total Professional
specialty population, there were 1,038,000 unemployed sometime between
Jan 1999 and December 2001. Of these 1,038,000, 623,000 (57.2% ) were
not in the specialty at the end of december 2001 and 404,000 wee
employed in their secialty. Some 219,000 were still in the BLS
unemployed category .The displacement was 2.84 times the BLS
unemployment, very close to my 3.3 times factor for EE' and 3.2 times
factor for CS&SA.

Job Categories used by the BLS for employment rates

http://www.bls.gov/

15-1000 Computer Specialists

15-1010 Computer and Information Scientists, Research

15-1011 Computer and Information Scientists, Research

15-1020 Computer Programmers

15-1021 Computer Programmers

15-1030 Computer Software Engineers

15-1031 Computer Software Engineers, Applications

15-1032 Computer Software Engineers, Systems Software

15-1040 Computer Support Specialists

15-1041 Computer Support Specialists

15-1050 Computer Systems Analysts

15-1051 Computer Systems Analysts

15-1060 Database Administrators

15-1061 Database Administrators

15-1070 Network and Computer Systems Administrators

15-1071 Network and Computer Systems Administrators

15-1080 Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts

15-1081 Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts

15-1090 Miscellaneous Computer Specialists

15-1099 Computer Specialists, All Other

17-2000 Engineers

17-2010 Aerospace Engineers

17-2011 Aerospace Engineers

17-2020 Agricultural Engineers

17-2021 Agricultural Engineers

17-2030 Biomedical Engineers

17-2031 Biomedical Engineers

17-2040 Chemical Engineers

17-2041 Chemical Engineers

17-2050 Civil Engineers

17-2051 Civil Engineers

17-2060 Computer Hardware Engineers

17-2061 Computer Hardware Engineers

17-2070 Electrical and Electronics Engineers

17-2071 Electrical Engineers

17-2072 Electronics Engineers, Except Computer

17-2080 Environmental Engineers

17-2081 Environmental Engineers

17-2110 Industrial Engineers, Including Health and Safety

17-2111 Health and Safety Engineers, Except Mining Safety Engineers and
Inspectors

17-2112 Industrial Engineers

17-2120 Marine Engineers and Naval Architects

17-2121 Marine Engineers and Naval Architects

17-2130 Materials Engineers

17-2131 Materials Engineers

17-2140 Mechanical Engineers

17-2141 Mechanical Engineers

17-2150 Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety
Engineers

17-2151 Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety
Engineers

17-2160 Nuclear Engineers

17-2161 Nuclear Engineers

17-2170 Petroleum Engineers

17-2171 Petroleum Engineers

17-2190 Miscellaneous Engineers

17-2199 Engineers, All Other

http://www.bls.gov/opub/gp/pdf/gp01_apndctab.pdf

Table C-2. Geographic boundaries of metropolitan areas

California
Los Angeles-Long Beach...... PMSA Los Angeles County
Oakland .................... PMSA Alameda and Contra Costa Counties
Orange County .............. PMSA Orange County
Riverside-San Bernardino ... PMSA Riverside and San Bernardino Counties
Sacramento-Yolo ............ CMSA El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, and
Yolo Counties
San Diego .................. MSA San Diego County
San Francisco .............. PMSA Marin, San Francisco, and San Mateo
Counties
San Jose .......................................................

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