Tech downturn doesn't slow H-1B visas

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Jan 27, 2002 | U.S. demand for visas to hire skilled foreign workers rose last year despite an economic downturn that prompted companies in various industries to lay off more than 1 million workers.

U.S. companies and other groups applied for 342,035 H-1B work visas in 2001, up 14 percent from 2000, before the economy tumbled. The H-1B visa is a six-year visa used for bringing skilled foreign workers in sectors that have shortages of qualified U.S. workers. About half the H-1B visas the U.S. government grants each year are for computer related jobs. About half go to people from India. China is a far second.

The number accepted also rose by 40 percent to about 163,200, after Congress, under pressure from the technology industry, raised the cap on the number of visas the Immigration and Naturalization Service can issue. At least 29,000 visas are pending.

The H-1B visa is a six-year visa used for bringing skilled foreign workers in sectors that have shortages of qualified U.S. workers.

Program supporters say it helps companies find qualified workers. They say U.S. schools aren't graduating enough computer engineers to meet demand. Critics say companies are just trying to get workers at a lower salary.

A possible reason for last year's increase is the 80,000 new engineering and computer jobs created in the technology industry. Also, universities and colleges looking for researchers had no restrictions on how many visas they requested.

Norman Matloff, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis and a critic of the program, said economics is the basic reason behind the jump. During a recession, companies are more eager than ever to cut costs, he said. Matloff says studies show the average annual wages of computer programmers and engineers working in the U.S. on the visas are 15 percent to 33 percent lower than those of U.S. citizens.

Bay Area companies Oracle, Cisco Systems, Intel and Sun Microsystems were among the top users of the program in 2000, as were universities such as Harvard and Yale. The INS did not have numbers available on how many applications the companies filed last year amid layoffs.

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