Report refutes claims of dire need for more H-1B visas

[OhioChick]

June 17, 2008

In an address at the National Society of Black Engineers Region VI conference, Bill Gates perpetuated the belief that the United States is not graduating enough science and engineering majors and that that the overall performance of high school students in science and math is declining.

< Ephraim Schwartz is on vacation. This blog post first appeared on November 17, 2007, but with the recent Congressional efforts to make it easier for tech companies to hire foreign nationals, it seemed timely to revisit. --Eds. >

Typically, these two myths are used as an excuse to promote the need for more H-1B visas.

High-tech industry leaders have dismissed as not true any suggestion that the real reason for wanting an increase is in order to hire cheap labor.

Now a new study, "Into the Eye of the Storm: Assessing the Evidence on Science and Engineering Education, Quality, and Workforce Demand," by Lindsay Lowell, Georgetown University and Hal Salzman, The Urban Institute refutes those claims.

The Urban Institute describes itself as a "nonprofit, nonpartisan policy research and educational organization that examines the social, economic, and governance problems facing the nation."

The report confronts two major issues, that of a labor shortage and a decline in educational excellence in science and math of U.S. students.

According to the report available data indicates increases "in absolute numbers of secondary school graduates and increases in their math and science performance level."

The report compares performance not only with national test results over a number of years but with test results of student performance from other countries as well.

For example, the study found that in 1982 high school graduates earned 2.6 math credits and 2.2 science credits. By 1998 the average was 3.5 for math and 3.2 for science credits.

In addition, the percentage of 13-year-olds taking algebra increased by 38 percent over that time period.

Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shows steady improvement in both math and science test scores.

In another part of the report, the authors cites studies that looked at six international tests administered by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The aggregate data concluded: "U.S. students have generally performed above average in comparisons with students in other industrialized nations."

As far as a shortage in computer science graduates to fill available jobs in the United States the study concludes that "the education system produces qualified graduates far in excess of demand."

Finally the reports concludes that, "assessing the claims of labor market shortages is crucial. Purported labor market shortages for scientists and engineers are anecdotal and also not supported by the available evidence."

But this doesn't seem to stop the steady drumbeat from high tech executives who keep saying over and over again that there is a shortage both in qualified computer science graduates now and in the pipeline in our schools to meet future needs.

Read the report. I found it both provocative and enlightening.


http://weblog.infoworld.com/realitycheck/archives/2008/06/report_refutes_1.html

[ihavenobias]

1. Interesting, K & R...

If you accept that we do in fact have a labor shortage, isn't more (cheap) education here the answer rather than importing labor?

It should be, at least in the long run.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. The only thing I see as an advantage to hiring foreigners, is that they

may not yet be indoctrinated into American liberties, and might not question certain things they're asked to do on the job, which an American (well, an American other than a Republican) might see as a violation of the Constitution.

[DCKit]

5. Or their pay, the 80 hour weeks, lack of benefits.... n/t

[OhioChick]

6. Shit.....

I work 60-80 hr. work weeks and have shitty insurance coverage, at best.

[ChromeFoundry]

3. Imagine that! k&r

[AdHocSolver]

4. There are many ways to show that this claim by employers that they can't find U.S. IT workers...

is a fraud.

In the 1990's, our Sunday paper had two to three PAGES of want ads for IT workers. Last Sunday, and typically every Sunday nowadays, there were two COLUMNS of ads for IT personnel. There doesn't seem to be any big demand for IT personnel.

I have a friend who is a top notch programmer with many years of experience. He is in his fifties and now works on salary for a "body" shop that farms him out to various employers. He is expected to work overtime when the hiring company requests it, but he doesn't get a dime of overtime pay as he is "salaried".

Another friend worked as a programmer for a multibillion dollar corporation. She worked in a department with four other programmers under three managers. After five years, the other programmers slowly "left" until she was the only programmer doing the work of five people (with the same three managers). It was bad enough working for three screwballs. The last straw was when they told her they could no longer "afford" to pay her for forty hours. So they were reducing her pay to thirty hours, although they still expected her to work forty hours. To show what nice guys they were, they were going to allow her to keep her health insurance (for now).

The stress became so great that she became physically ill and had to quit.

A few years ago, I worked with some Chinese engineers brought in to "learn the business" as the company was planning to build a factory in China. I was not impressed with the skills or talent displayed by the Chinese guys. One of them was downright obnoxious. The managers, on the other hand, thought they got the cream of the crop. My thought was that these guys were sent to the U.S. because they were mediocre. The Chinese kept their best and brightest in China and sent their mediocre engineers to the U.S. where the U.S. managers couldn't tell the difference anyway.

One reason U.S. companies rather hire foreign workers, aside from the low pay, is that the foreign workers have to kowtow to the U.S. managers, or risk getting sent back to China or India with a bad reference, which could kill their careers. These foreigners wouldn't dare question a manager's decision or refuse to do whatever they were told.