This year, Congress raised the number of high-tech temporary work visas, from 65,000 to 115,000 VIDEO CNN's Rick Lockridge looks at the high-tech visa issue Windows Media 28K 80K

August 4, 1999
Web posted at: 10:26 p.m. EDT (0226 GMT)

From Correspondent Rick Lockridge

SEATTLE (CNN) -- Lan Zhou has the kind of software programming skills that employers covet. But the Chinese-born engineer barely squeaked into the United States on a so-called "high-tech visa" and must now complete a mountain of paperwork in order to stay in the country.

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

Just down the hall, 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 ... looking for American citizens, and yet there are people who are dying to work but can't," she 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 by 2002.

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

"There just aren't enough trained, skilled Americans to fill all of these jobs," Allen said.

In Seattle's booming high-tech corridor alone, 64,000 new jobs are expected to open up in the next three years. While that would normally be great news, state officials and computer companies are worried that up to one-third of those jobs will go begging.

Republicans in Congress are pushing to increase the number of high-tech visas offered. Michigan Sen. Spencer Abraham accuses labor unions and the White House of working to block efforts to increase the number of non-U.S. citizens in American jobs.

"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.

Critics of the H1-B program say come companies are trying to get away with paying lower salaries to non-U.S. workers than they would have to pay to citizens.

B-Square's Cecilia Brandy disputes that claim, saying international workers are making the same wage for the same job -- and that it is actually more expensive to recruit, relocate and install an international worker than to hire domestically.

High-tech firms say their worker shortage is already so severe that the best place to find good people is at their competitor's doorstep.

Meanwhile, officials in Washington have concluded that the ideal solution to the shortage is to spur U.S. colleges and universities to turn out more high-tech graduates. But they concede it could take years to prime that pump.

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