Testimony on the H-1B Temporary At Oversight
Hearings By Paul J. Kostek August 5, 1999
Introductory RemarksGood Afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. I am Paul Kostek, the 1999 President of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers – United States of America (IEEE-USA). I am employed as a systems engineer for TekSci, a systems engineering and software development company headquartered in Seattle, Washington. I help companies in the aerospace and medical devices industries to develop hardware and software systems design requirements, test specifications and software standards. Since graduating from the University of Massachusetts with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, I have also worked for Scitor Corporation (another Seattle-based systems engineering firm), Sundstrand Data Control, Boeing and the Grumman Aerospace Corporation. I want to thank the Chairman and other members of the Judiciary Committee for holding these oversight hearings on the H-1B program. IEEE-USA also appreciates your determined efforts in the 105th Congress to fashion common sense legislation that would have authorized modest increases in H-1B admissions ceilings coupled with important safeguards for all U.S. workers, had it not been disregarded by the Congressional leadership this time last year. 1.IEEE-USA’s Interest in the H-1B Specialty Occupation Visa Program The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a transnational technical professional society made up of more than 350,000 electrical, electronics and computer engineers in 147 countries. IEEE-USA promotes the professional careers and technology policy interests of IEEE’s 225,000 U.S. members. The U.S. members of IEEE are individual professionals who, by virtue of their education, experience and employment, are vitally concerned about public policies and programs that affect opportunities to apply their specialized knowledge and skills to the solution of complex technological problems in an increasingly competitive global economy. IEEE-USA’s perspectives on high tech workforce issues and continuing industry demands that Congress relax existing controls on employment-based admissions, both permanent and temporary, are the result of our members’ personal experience with booms and busts in domestic engineering labor markets over the past 25 years. 2.Current Labor Markets for Engineers and Computer Specialists The answer to the often-debated question of whether or not there is a shortage of core information technology workers (computer engineers and scientists, systems analysts and programmers) depends, in large part, on who you talk to. Many employers in the public and private sectors – in academia and in industry – contend that the nation faces an endemic IT worker shortage of crisis proportions. They point to declining enrollments and degree trends in engineering and computer science in the early 1990’s and the failure of our elementary and secondary schools to prepare more students for high tech careers to support their contention that the supply of workers is and will continue to be insufficient to meet increasing world wide demands for trained technical professionals. Most IT workers, and their professional societies – while acknowledging increasing demand and tight labor markets for workers with very highly specialized knowledge and skills – argue that the existing supply of technically trained personnel is much broader and deeper than is generally assumed. Economists argue that tight labor markets and spot shortages of workers with very specific knowledge, skills and experience are inevitable short-term results of the information technology revolution that is sweeping the country and the world. Over the longer run, they insist that market forces will work to correct these imbalances. Research by Carolyn Veneri, an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, suggests that, although no single measure of occupational labor shortages exists, available data on unemployment rates, occupational employment growth and wage increases can be used to assess the existence of or the potential for shortages. Writing in the March 1999 issue of the Monthly Labor Review, Ms.Veneri hypothesized that if shortages in an occupation were to develop during the current expansion, the occupation’s employment growth would be strong; the occupation’s wages would increase relative to other occupations, indicating determined efforts by employers to attract more workers; and the unemployment rate for that occupation would decline and remain relatively low. For the purposes of this research, 68 occupations were evaluated to determine whether, for the 1992-1997 period, the occupation’s employment growth rate was at least 50 percent faster than average employment growth; the wage increase was at least 30 percent faster than the average; and the occupation’s unemployment rate was at least 30 percent below average. Despite the remarkable increase in economic growth between 1992 and 1997, (much of which is attributable to advances in information technology) only seven of the 68 occupations met all three of these criteria: management analysts; special education teachers; dental hygienists; marketing, advertising and public relations managers; airplane pilots and navigators; purchasing agents; and mechanical engineers. Although unemployment rates for core IT occupations, including computer engineers and scientists, systems analysts and programmers, have been consistently lower than the national rates (for other occupations) over the 1992–1997 period, none exhibited higher than average employment growth or higher than average growth in wages when compared with all other professional specialty occupations. IEEE-USA doesn’t think this kind of evidence supports industry pleadings for another increase in H-1B admissions ceilings! 3.Responsiveness of Information Technology Labor Markets None of this is to suggest that demand for core IT workers has not increased significantly in recent years and won’t continue to grow in the years immediately ahead. But national labor markets are already responding to increasing demands. After several years of declines, educational enrollments are increasing in IT related disciplines. Bachelor’s level enrollments in computer engineering and computer science, for example, have more than doubled in the past three years. Universities and community colleges are responding to employers’ needs with specialized IT training programs and proprietary school and company-sponsored IT certification programs are growing in number and popularity. Many employers are increasing on-the-job training and more IT professionals are taking steps to update their technical, managerial and communications knowledge and skills. Congressional proposals to extend the expiring income tax exclusion for employer-provided educational assistance and establish an information technology training tax credit will provide additional public support for these important educational activities. Stakeholders from the public and private sectors are working together to organize innovative, industry-education-community partnerships and skills alliances to expand IT training opportunities for U.S. workers at the state, regional and local levels. IEEE-USA believes that this robust labor market response mitigates the need for yet another increase in H-1B admissions ceilings! But what about the fact that the new 115,000 annual ceiling was reached in June of this year? Nearly 20,000 of this year’s visas are rollovers from 1998 - visas issued to prior year petitioners whose employment was authorized to begin on October 1, 1998. Much of this year’s early over-subscription is attributable to widespread publicity about the availability of the new, higher quota in this country and overseas. And recent evidence suggests that some of this year’s allotment of visas may have been awarded on the basis of fraudulent applications. Based on all of this information, it’s difficult to conclude that early over-subscription is due entirely to a substantial increase in demand for IT workers in 1999. 4.Status of Mid-Career and Older Workers In the midst of tight labor markets, many mid-career and older workers continue to be “downsized.” Others report increasing difficulty securing and maintaining employment in IT fields. A 1998 survey of IEEE’s U.S. members, for example, revealed that it takes out-of-work engineers three more weeks to find new jobs for every additional year of age. Unfortunately, there is a widespread perception in the new information economy, that the knowledge, skills and judgement that come with experience count for less and less and that mid-career and older workers lack the flexibility and adaptability as well as the willingness and ability to maintain their employability in such a fast-changing, technology-driven global economy. IEEE-USA disagrees with and is committed to disproving this erroneous perception! 5. Opportunities for Under-Represented Groups Despite modest gains since the late 1980’s, women, certain ethnic minorities, the handi- capped and economically disadvantaged Americans are seriously underrepresented in many scientific and engineering fields. And although the proportion of women, Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans in high school graduating classes is increasing, such individuals continue to be much less likely than white males to pursue careers in these fields. Among the impediments to greater participation by underrepresented groups include inadequate educational preparation in math and science at the elementary and secondary educational levels, low expectations and non-supportive attitudes on the part of many educators and a lack of opportunities for mentoring relationships in traditionally white male dominated professions and occupations. Increasing utilization of talented foreign nationals – to help fill classes and perform teaching and research functions at the nation’s colleges and universities, as well as to work in industry – also limits opportunities for traditionally under-represented citizens to obtain the knowledge and skills needed for productive employment and advancement in the nation’s high tech sector. Another reason not to support another increase in H-1B admissions ceilings at this time! 6.The H-1B Program Should be Repaired Rather Than Expanded Based on findings presented in a 1996 Inspector General’s report and at recent hearings before this committee, IEEE-USA strongly recommends that Congress take steps to repair the badly-flawed H-1B and other employment-based admissions programs before it even thinks about another increase in visa caps. In 1996, the Inspector General at the Department of Labor audited the Department’s role in the administration of two important employment-based admissions programs: the permanent labor certification (PLC) and the temporary, H-1B labor condition attestation (LCA) programs. He found that “while the Employment and Training Administration is doing all it can within its authority, the PLC and the LCA programs do not protect U.S. workers’ jobs or wages and that neither meets its legislative intent. DoL’s role amounts to little more than a paper shuffle for the PLC program and a rubber stamping for LCA applications.” The IG concluded that annual expenditures in excess of $50 million for DoL’s employment-based admissions programs do little to add value to a system that Congress established to protect American jobs and wages. He recommended the Secretary work with Congress to correct deficiencies in both programs. To date, Congress has done little to remedy problems identified in the 1996 report. Earlier this year, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims held hearings at which witnesses from the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Department of State introduced evidence of pervasive fraud by petitioning employers and individual applicants in the H-1B and the L (Intra-Company Transfer) visa programs. As Subcommittee Chairman Smith put it just last week, “When 45 percent of H-1B visa applications examined at one consulate in India could not be verified and 21 percent were fraudulent, we have a serious problem in the H-1B program.” Conclusions and Recommendations IEEE-USA believes that it is premature to consider increasing current limits on temporary, employment-based admissions under the H-1B (Specialty Occupations) visa program until the National Research Council completes and Congress has an opportunity to assess the results of the studies it mandated in the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-277, Sec. 417-418). These studies are to include analyses of current and projected labor market needs for workers with high technology skills and an assessment of the status of older workers in the information technology field. In the absence of reliable statistics to support industry’s contention that there is a serious national shortage of core information technology workers, including computer engineers and scientists, systems analysts and programmers, there is insufficient empirical evidence to justify another increase in H-1B admissions ceilings at this time. Our concerns are compounded by very credible evidence suggesting that the H-1B visa program and other employment-based admissions programs do not include appropriate, effective, enforceable safeguards for employment opportunities, wages and working conditions for U.S. workers, including citizens, permanent residents and foreign nationals who have been legally admitted to work temporarily in the United States. Until such time as these deficiencies have been corrected, there should be no further increase in employment-based admissions. For its part, IEEE-USA will welcome an opportunity to work with other concerned employer associations, labor organizations and professional societies as well as with Congress and the Administration to promote needed improvements in laws and regulations governing the employment-based admission of foreign nationals to the United States. At the same time, we believe that such admissions continue be viewed as a supplement to – not as a substitute for – continuing public and private efforts to improve the nation’s technological capabilities through more effective education, training and life-long learning programs and through better management and utilization of American workers, including engineers and computer scientists. The
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