http://www.jrnl.com/news/99/Aug/jrn53120899.html


Arlington Journal 12-08-99

Tech firms seek foreign workers
Labor groups charge age discrimination


By STEPHEN HENN
Journal staff writer


When Congress reconvenes next month, it will take up a host of proposals
to expand a controversial visa program allowing high-tech firms to hire
foreign workers and bringing complaints from labor groups.


Such high-tech firms with large local presences as Oracle and MCI
Worldcom contended they need the visa increases for foreign high-tech
workers to fill job vacancies, but the labor groups say the visas are
unnecessary and are being used by some firms to replace older,
higher-paid workers with lower-paid immigrants.


"Age discrimination is rampant in this industry," said Norman Matloff, a
computer science professor at the University of California at Davis who
is lobbying against the proposal. "An Information Week [magazine] survey
of hiring managers found that only 2 percent of managers would be likely
to hire people with more than 10 years experience."


Computer industry officials argue there is a high-tech labor shortage,
but Matloff said many companies refuse to hire qualified applicants. He
argues many employers prefer recent college graduates, as well as
immigrants whose visas are tied to their jobs. As a group, they are
willing to work longer hours for less pay, Matloff said, claiming he has
reams of data to back up his case.


"In spite of employer claims that they are desperate for workers,
companies large and small only hire 2 percent of their applicants for
computer programming positions," he said. "There is no hiring shortage."


There is mounting evidence older high-tech workers face age
discrimination when searching for employment.


Laura Langbein, professor of political science at the School for Public
Affairs at American University, recently completed a study of electrical
engineers showing that length of unemployment is linked to age.


"Once they lose their jobs, older engineers have a much harder time
trying to find another one," Langbein said. "If you take someone who is
55 and someone who is 56 and they have the same skills, the 56-year-old
will take an average of three weeks longer to find a new job."


Matloff blames those statistics, at least in part, on the high-tech visa
program, which is labeled H-1B and allows immigrants with special skills
to come to this country to work.


Matloff contends expanding the program will continue to prop up a system
of age discrimination that is denying many older engineers access to a
major part of the new economy, but Langbein said she is not convinced.


"A lot of older engineers blame their unemployment on the H-1B visa
program but, given the overall rate of unemployment for engineers, which
is hovering around 1 percent - I am not sure that is fair," she said.
"Older engineers may not be as well trained and they may be more
expensive."


Like Langbein, computer industry representatives and politicians in
favor of expanding the high-tech visa program point to historically low
unemployment rates and argue that new, highly skilled workers are
necessary to fuel the computer revolution.


"With record low unemployment, many U.S. companies have been forced to
slow their expansion or cancel projects," said U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm
(R-Texas). "We will achieve our full economic potential only if we
ensure companies can find and hire the people whose unique
qualifications and specialized skills are critical to America's future
success."


Last week, Gramm introduced a bill in the Senate that would allow U.S.
companies to hire 200,000 high-tech workers from overseas for each of
the next three years, almost doubling the size of the current program.


Congress last year increased the number of visas from 65,000 to 115,000,
but by May of this year the caps already had been reached.


And locally, many high-tech companies still are reporting labor shortages.


"We currently have more than 1,500 openings at Oracle," said Dejan
Pavlovic, a lawyer working for Oracle, an $8.1 billion software giant.
"What we basically want is anyone who is qualified to do the job - we
don't care what passport a qualified candidate has."


Currently 5 or 6 of percent of Oracle's domestic labor force, 1,150 to
1,380 technicians, are here on high-tech, H-1B visas, according to
Pavlovic, and the company is lobbying hard to expand the program.


"The [information technology] industry is facing a tremendous labor
shortage," Pavlovic said. "The industry is growing so fast that, when
you project the current trends out 10 years into the future, you can
clearly see that the domestic supply of qualified people simply won't
meet the demand."


But Matloff is not alone in questioning the computer industry's call.
Academics, politicians and the Government Accounting Office all have
doubts about an continuing labor shortage in the U.S.


Enrollment in computer science program at University's around the
country is booming.


While a widely sited study conducted last year by Information Technology
Association of America found there were 340,000 job openings in the
computer industry, the U.S. General Accounting Office threw out the
study as grossly inaccurate.


"The GAO basically rejected their methodology," said Allen Kay,
spokesman for U.S. Rep Lamar Smith (R-Texas) chairman of the House
Immigration and Claims Subcommittee.


Smith, whose consent is crucial to passing any legislation expanding the
H-1B visa program, is highly skeptical of claims by the computer
industry that their is a labor shortage.


"There is no empirical evidence showing a shortage of high-tech
workers," Kay said. "All the evidence right now is anecdotal."


Matloff insists it is a manufactured crisis.


"Employers hiring foreign nationals is often motivated by the fact that
many of those workers will take lower salaries," he said. "This program
is the exact opposite of the free market. Companies have foreign workers
over a barrel."