Folly of cap on immigrant visas
America's annual dash to hire skilled foreign professionals is already over. It began, perhaps appropriately, on April Fool's Day and within a week the 65,000 quota was filled.
High-tech employers said their inability to get visas to import workers would force them to expand their operation overseas. Robert Hoffman, vice president of Oracle Corp., said the company last year sent jobs to Ireland and India when it couldn't get enough H1B visas and that the company has 1,000 openings for skilled jobs it can't fill locally.
Supporters of an immigration cap in Britain - the Conservatives, UKIP, MigrationWatch, and now the House of Lords economic select committee - try to bolster their position by referring to the fact that other advanced economies, notably the US, impose one.
Indeed, many do. And look at the consequences.
The principal reason why Oracle and other US high-tech companies are unable to find 'locals' to fill the openings for skilled jobs is because locals, that is regular Americans, have long since abdicated the tech sector to the tsunami of cheap Asian imports which has overwhelmed the job market in the last 15 years or so since the inception of the H1-B program.
The very worst advice that an American parent could give his offspring is to choose a career option which is also open to low-cost Asian imports. That is why the number of Americans entering university to pursue degrees in engineering or scientific disciplines is at an all-time low.
As a twenty year veteran of Silly Valley I know of what I speak.
Stan Ogden | 10 Apr 2008 06:21:45