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Aug. 1, 2000 Issue of CIO Magazine
Want to sound off on this or other topics? Join the ongoing debates at
comment.cio.com.
IS Staffing Research Center
(http://www.cio.com/forums/staffing/)
POLITICIANS AND HIGH-TECH LOBBYISTS may be quibbling over legislative
details, but nearly everyone agrees that this country is in desperate need
of more foreign-born IS workers.
The current federal allowance of 115,000 H1-B visas, the high-tech
industry claims, barely puts a dent in the IT labor shortage. Largely as a
result of efforts by lobbyists like Harris Miller, president of the
Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), Congress is
considering two rival H1-B visa bills: one to raise the cap to 200,000 and
the other to remove the cap altogether.
"With over 850,000 IT jobs expected to go unfilled this year, Congress
must act quickly to raise the number of available H1-B visas," argues
Miller. "Increasing the availability of highly skilled [foreign-born]
workers to American technology companies is one of the most positive steps
the United States can take this year toward continuing the robust growth of
the new economy."
Shelley Morrisette, senior vice president and director of research at
Darwin Partners, an IT workforce solutions company, couldn't disagree more.
"Changing immigration policy will not work," argues Morrisette. "Technology
is constantly changing and accelerating, creating obsolete IS workers
daily. The real issue facing the high-tech industry is how to effectively
and continually retrain and use obsolete workers."
According to Morrisette, the whole staffing crisis—and the notion that
throwing more visas at the problem will solve it—is a red herring launched
by the high-tech industry to put downward pressure on IT salaries. More
bodies may increase the pool of candidates, and many of those bodies may
come cheap, says Morrisette, but CIOs who chase down H1-B visa workers are
wasting their time. Their energies would be better spent retooling their
human resource strategies for the new economy.
An obsolete worker is an obsolete worker, and 10 are no better than
one. Regardless of the number of H1-B visas available, says Morrisette,
companies that implement effective retraining programs, pay a premium for
highly skilled talent and ignore the doomsday laments of staffing crisis
propagandists will successfully manage their own staffing situation.
Companies that expect a larger and cheaper labor pool to solve their
staffing woes for them will be the first to go.
Will more H1-B visas solve your staffing problems? Here's a sampling
of the comments and concerns that Senior Web Editor Martha Heller received.
You can respond to her by e-mail at mheller@cio.com or respond to this and
other topics on CIO.com via comment.cio.com.
NOT TO PANIC. A FEW YEARS AGO ALL OF THE I.T. high-tech jobs were going to
India and the Philippines. Besides the assumed quality and cheap labor, the
fact that they speak English was a significant factor. Because these
workers were remote and had a lack of understanding of the "American way,"
even with e-mail and the Internet, this threat wasn't significant.
Now, the threat is that they will come here and take away the IT jobs
that they could not take away remotely. I think that those who are truly
competent and, more significantly, who are capable of working in the United
States as individuals, and yet as part of a team, will make a contribution
to our growth and to the improvement of our economy.
Charles J. Liszcz
CIO & CTO
Enterprise Services Co.
cliszcz@esc-hdq.com
THE ISSUE IS NOT ONLY THE NUMBER of H1-B visas that are being granted but
the amount of time involved in processing them. For example, when an
organization is seeking a resource, the initial thinking is to hire local.
Hiring local saves costs (moving costs) and allows the company to
effectively check references. If a resource isn't found domestically to
fulfill the need and a foreign applicant is identified, it still takes a
number of weeks (I've heard four to eight) to get the visa processed. In
our business, this time is an eternity.
Alan Tragarz
Director, e-Business Solutions
Silicon Space Inc.
alan@siliconspace.com
IT'S AN ISSUE THAT NEEDS to be handled with an open mind. What's so wrong
with H1-B guys getting $65,000 to $115,000 salaries? They are highly
qualified workers in a hot market that constantly keeps creating demand for
skilled workers. When employers are ready to pay that kind of money, why
not allow it?
The issue surrounding H1-B visas is not how much people get paid but
how many people are needed to fill these positions—800,000 plus for this
year. I think offering green cards to skilled workers is a great idea and
eliminates the get-out-after-six-years policy.
Shyam Radhakrishnan
ERP Administrator
StarMedia Network
shyam@starmedia.net
I AGREE WITH MOST OF SHELLEY MORRISETTE'S comments. One exception, though,
is the retraining of obsolete workers. It has been my experience that they
do not want to be retrained. They have become complacent in what they can
do and want to do.
We are also unwilling to pay the high premiums for highly skilled
talent. I also feel that there needs to be a qualification of "highly
skilled." Most of the resources who claim to be highly skilled talent,
foreign nationals or otherwise, do not always turn out to have the skills
they claim to have. I have also found that foreign nationals do not tend to
be delivery-oriented as much as wanting to improve their skill levels. This
is key to being highly competitive in today's business model of
quick-to-market.
Staffing for information technology should evolve to a core competent
group that has information technology experience, is business-oriented and
can keep abreast of the advances in technologies.
Frank Williams
Manager of Advance Technologies & Web Development
Thomas & Betts
frank_williams@tnb.com
I WOULD LIKE TO SEE A SIGNIFICANT increase in the pool of foreign workers.
We have successfully used foreign workers in the past. This is one of
several efforts required to meet the shortage of skills in the marketplace.
However, our colleges and universities need to be more effective in
delivering graduates with the right skills. All companies, though, need to
offer retraining to their workers.
David Baumgart
IS Director
John Morrell & Co.
dbaumgart@johnmorrell.com
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