Technology, Immigration, and Education -

How has corporations hiring of IT professionals been affected by the new immigration rules? Many technology executives feel that restrictive visa and immigration rules have hampered their ability to hire more of the world’s best engineers. Is the problem that brighter engineers from China and India are willing to accept jobs at a lower salary than us Americans? Is cost cutting by hiring H1-B’s really the most effective solution? Is it due to our domestic IT talent shortage which is shrinking day by day?

Large companies like Microsoft and Google have noted that the main problem is the shortage of IT talent in the US, and not the issue of foreigners depriving Americans of employment within their own country. Bill Gates, the Chairman of Microsoft stated that the US Government needs to remove the restrictions on H1B’s in the U.S if the U.S wants to remain a technology leader. Currently, the U.S gives 65,000 H1B work visas every year and over 45,000 of them go to Indian professionals in the IT sector. The problem we are facing is the lack of current and upcoming IT talent in the U.S. Companies feel that the United States has not invested enough time and money into the research and development of computer science and engineering educations. The United States produces around 100,000 college graduates a year, while India produces 400,000 in the IT field.

If the United States does not invest into the research and development of computer science education, it will eventually fall behind India and China, and other countries that are rapidly closing in on the U.S. What is more important; saving our citizens jobs or helping the U.S remain atop the technology world? What happens when China and India pass us as on a technical level? Will our top IT engineers leave the U.S and go work for the top companies in India and China. This will make our domestic talent pool shrink even more than it already has. If we have a shortage of IT talent domestically, is bringing in additional talent to help the US really a bad thing? Nobody seemed to have a problem when foreign entrepreneurs founded Sun Microsystems, Intel, and Google. These 3 companies alone led to heavy economic and job growth domestically here in the states. No matter what happens with immigration, technology and education, the three must work together to find an effective solution.

Ali Ladjevardi