Visas way to close skills gap?

FOREIGN THREAT? Tim Hebert, CEO of Atrion, said despite some viewing H-1B visas as a “threat,” he supports the program. / PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
FOREIGN THREAT? Tim Hebert, CEO of Atrion, said despite some viewing H-1B visas as a “threat,” he supports the program. / PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

John Condon, president of Stonewall Solutions, will tell you it’s no easy task finding the right people to work at his software-development company. “We need candidates with technology skills that are pretty unique,” he said. “To find them, we have to cast a wide net.”
Stonewall, with 10 workers split between offices in Providence and Marlboro, Mass., has solved its personnel problem by casting that net overseas. Most years the company has one or two employees brought to this country with H-1B visas, which allow employers to hire foreign workers for temporary jobs.
The visas – good for three years and then renewable for three more – are reserved for workers with special skills and degrees that might be scarce in the U.S. talent pool. Supporters of the program argue the United States is training too few computer programmers, engineers, scientists, financial analysts and medical professionals, a shortfall they say is part of the much-debated national “skills gap.”
Condon bristles at the suggestion that visa workers take jobs from Americans. “They make our company more competitive,” he explained, “and I think that strengthens America’s economy. Without them, I think we’d fall behind.”
While the H-1B visa program has been around since 1990, until recently news coverage has been scanty. This year, however, an immigration-reform package under discussion in Congress has put H-1B visas in the headlines. The package, which has passed the Senate, includes a proposal to almost triple the number available, raising the cap from 65,000 visas to 180,000. In addition, the federal immigration service could issue another 20,000 in years that see a dip in unemployment for management and professional occupations.
There’s no shortage of those critical of the plan. They charge business interests – chiefly high-tech companies – have exaggerated the skills gap because they have found visa workers, mostly from less-affluent Asian countries, are willing to work for less money. Federal law requires employers to pay visa workers the “prevailing wage,” but there’s little oversight, and companies can defend their wage rate by commissioning their own surveys. Some critics argue H-1B visas may actually exacerbate the skills gap, because college students may be discouraged from entering technical professions when they see jobs going to temporary workers from India and China. There are also concerns about the treatment of H-1B workers. The federal government awards the work permits to companies, not the employees, and critics argue that arrangement makes H-1B workers little more than indentured servants. If a foreign worker loses his job, and he can find no way to quickly obtain another visa, he and his family must return to their home country immediately.
West Coast tech companies – Google, Oracle and Microsoft – have led the lobbying push to expand the H-1B program, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acting as the most visible spokesman. Many of those companies have come to rely on the program. Microsoft, for example, requested almost 1,500 H-1B visas last year, and sought to renew nearly the same number.
Though few high-tech workers are union members, labor interests have nonetheless stepped forward to lead the opposition. While leaders of Rhode Island’s AFL-CIO did not return calls seeking comment on the issue, the national organization has publicly voiced disapproval.
Just how much are H-1B workers paid? You can find the answer on the website myvisajobs.com, a commercial site that tracks government statistics on work visas. They list the most in-demand jobs for H-1B workers as programmer analyst, software engineer, computer programmer, systems analyst, business analyst, computer-systems analyst, assistant professor, physical therapist, senior software engineer, accountant and research associate. And for H-1B workers the average annual salary for all those positions never tops $100,000. The average pay for an H-1B software engineer is listed as $83,076; for a computer programmer, $61,815; for an accountant, $49,121.
For Washington Democrats, who often side with labor, it’s a sticky issue. The Senate-passed immigration-reform package is an attempt at compromise, and that has muted challenges. Nevertheless, some have kept up the theme that visa workers should be a last resort. When the Senate Judiciary Committee reviewed the bill, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., added an amendment that creates a hotline for workers to report companies that fail to first seek American job candidates. “I’ve heard from Rhode Islanders at my community dinners who have been laid off and replaced by foreign workers,” he said. Most requests for H-1B visas come from traditionally Democratic states, where innovation industries often thrive. Last year New Jersey topped the list with 54,501 requests, followed by California, with 50,265. Texas, the only Republican-leaning state near the top, was listed third, with 34,841. Neighboring Massachusetts, another innovation leader, filed 12,795 requests last year, and was listed seventh from the top.
Rhode Island, by contrast, filed 637 visa requests, putting the state in the bottom fifth nationally, and nestled among those regions where agriculture, natural resources and tourism fuel the economy.
Companies won’t get all those H-1B visas, of course. In years when the number of requests exceed the cap, the federal government holds a lottery to distribute visas. In addition, some organizations that request visas in significant numbers – chiefly universities, teaching hospitals and nonprofit research institutes – are exempt from the cap.
With Rhode Island’s unemployment rate hovering just under 9 percent, most companies that hire H-1B workers are reluctant to discuss the issue.
“There’s a negative stigma around not using American workers,” said Gisele Mahoney, manager of communications at the Tech Collective, the state’s technology-industry association. “We support using American workers, but the reality is there’s a shortage of people to fill those spots, and that forces companies to look overseas.”
Tim Hebert, CEO of the Warwick-based Atrion Networking Corp., agrees. “When you have higher-than-normal unemployment, people see it as a threat,” he said. “They see it as something that takes jobs away from U.S. citizens.”
Though Hebert’s company rarely hires visa workers – he counts just three through the years – the CEO is a strong supporter of the program. “The fundamental problem is that we’re not graduating enough students who are U.S. citizens in the areas of science, engineering and math,” he said. “In this industry, it can be very difficult to find the kind of talent we need, and H-1B visas add to the talent population. I’d like to see more visas. It’s too restrictive now for industry in general.” Taco Inc., the Cranston-based manufacturer of HVAC systems, has won praise for its employee training and education programs. Nonetheless, it has had to use H-1B visas to fill a few positions, according to Kyle Adamonis, senior vice president for human resources.
“It’s specific types of engineers that can be hard to find – motor engineers, embedded software engineers,” she said. “The engineers who come to us have either a four-year degree or a master’s. We certainly offer training here, and tuition reimbursement for college courses, so we’re way ahead of the curve, but it takes four years to get a degree, and that’s if you’re a full-time student.”
Efforts are underway to train more Rhode Islanders for technology jobs. The R.I. Department of Labor and Training works with employers to develop quick retraining programs in health care, IT, bioscience, hospitality, advanced manufacturing, marine trades and construction, areas that need workers now or likely will in the near future.
“We don’t want to connect people to training programs that don’t lead to anything,” said Laura Hart, the department’s communications manager. “We work with employers to build what they need. The skills gap is a controversial issue, but either way, we believe in lifelong learning.”
Mahoney added that, “We can partly fill the gap with some quick-fix programs. At the Tech Collective we’ve launched a new program, IT On Demand, funded by the Governor’s Workforce Board, that’s designed for people who have some IT experience, but need to refresh their skills to re-enter the workforce.”
But training programs will likely never erase the need for worker visas. As technology continues to advance, employers will have to look far and wide to find people with the right skills, and workers with specific talents will have to be mobile, too.
“We have an obligation to invest in local talent, both long term and short term,” said Hebert. “But as our society becomes more educated and technology oriented, geographic boundaries lose their meaning.” •

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2 COMMENTS

  1. When employers make statements like John Condon’s in the first paragraph (“We need candidates with technology skills that are pretty unique”) in defense of H-1B visas they never seem to say what skills specifically. I wish he had been pressed to say just what he needed that he allegedly can’t find. It would be only fair, and he just might hear from readers who have the skills he is seeking.

  2. I went to school for finance and economics, but right out of college I couldn’t get an analyst gig anywhere without an MBA + experience. Companies aren’t willing to train or lack the resources to do so I would argue. I think an MBA is pretty useless with a fin + econ background for someone who also wants to learn the position.