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The shortage of qualified computer programmers in the U.S. forces recruiters to look overseas VIDEO CNN's Rick Lockridge looks at high-tech visas for immigrant workers Windows Media 28K 80K Relocating international workers Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K

August 19, 1999
Web posted at: 10:07 a.m. EDT (1407 GMT)

(CNN) -- Lan Zhou has the kind of programming skills employers covet.

Yet the Chinese-born software engineer barely squeaked into the United States on a "high tech visa" and must now complete a mountain of paperwork to stay here.

"You have to always think, 'I need to do this, I need to do that, otherwise I'll be kicked out,'" Zhou says.

Just down the hall, a colleague of Zhou's at the Seattle software company B-Square, British-born Julie Williams wonders why the United States won't allow more skilled immigrants like her to fill more of the estimated 350,000 vacant high-tech jobs nationwide.

"The employer is stuck between looking for American citizens and yet there are people who are dying to work but can't," Williams said.

This year, Congress raised the number of high-tech temporary-work visas, called H1-B visas, from 65,000 to 115,000. The same number of the six-year work permits will be issued next year, before the allotment drops back down to 65,000 in 2002.

All of this year's visas were used up by June, leaving most jobs unfilled and frustrating job recruiters like B-Square's Sharilyn Allen.

Zhou

"There just aren't enough trained, skilled Americans to fill all of these jobs," says Allen, recruiting manager for B-Square.

A move is afoot to raise the number of high-tech-worker visas yet again to 200,000 a year, but Michigan Senator Spencer Abraham, who presided over the debate for the current limits, says labor unions and the White House don't want to give any more American jobs to non-U.S. citizens.

"And as long as they're dug in on that, it probably means it won't happen, at least not during the remainder of President Clinton's term," Abraham said.

Corporate and government leaders agree that the ideal solution is for U.S. colleges and universities to pump out more high-tech graduates. But they also agree that it will take years for scholarships and work-study programs to prime that pump.

CNN Correspondent Rick Lockridge contributed to this report.

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