Based on the research of the National Research
Council, the Government Accountability Office, the Department of Education, the
Computing Research Association, the National Academy of Sciences, the National
Academy of Engineering, the RAND Corporation and a host of other university research
sources, the AFL-CIO labor organization published a report in December
refuting the claim that there is a shortage of engineering, technology and
scientific talent in the United States. This report comes from the Department
of Professional Employees, which is an amalgamation of four AFL-CIO
unions, including those representing IT workers, engineers, scientists, professors
and other educators.
The report, entitled "Gaming the System: Guest Worker Visa Programs and
Professional and Technical Workers in the U.S.," pokes holes in guest
worker programs and sheds light on the core issue of wage reduction for
technical professionals in the United States and expansion of guest workers into
newer fields such as health care and education. The report touches on the
oft-cited abuse and mistreatment of guest workers from foreign countries, as
well as closely examining near-stagnant wages for U.S. workers and H-1B visa holders.
The report looks at real-world examples of wage abuse based on 2008 wages of
several technical H-1B visa holders, including one whom Mabemah, based in Ocoee,
Fla., paid $11.20 per hour for a Web developer job—well below the prevailing
wage for that occupation. It also cites the example of a director of Medical
Information Technology who made $11.90 an hour at The Pediatric Associates in
Montrose, Colo. Tactics for wage repression of H-1B visa holders cited in the
report include:
"Employers often set lower salaries
by: selecting a survey source with the lowest salaries, misclassifying
experienced employees as entry-level, giving an H-1B visa holder a lower job
title than [his or her] work requires, or citing wages for a low-cost area of
the country while the H-1B holder is unlawfully transferred to a higher-cost
area."
The executive summary of the report expresses several of its key findings, (PDF) including U.S. graduation rates in STEM
(science, technology, engineering, math) fields:
"Claims of shortages necessitating these programs, especially in the STEM fields, have been
widely disputed and are not borne out by basic economic indicators. A
Congressionally-mandated study released by the National Research Council found
that, "the current size of the H-1B workforce relative to the overall
number of IT professionals is large enough to keep wages from rising as fast as
might be expected in a tight labor market. ... If a genuine labor shortage
existed, wages in these fields would have risen dramatically in ways they have
not. ... In addition, unemployment rates in this sector have increased
dramatically over the past year, with engineers reaching their highest
unemployment rate since at least 1972. Graduation rates in the STEM fields also indicate
that the United States is producing enough
graduates to meet the employment needs of the industry."
"This whole concept of shortages is bogus; it shows a lack of
understanding of the labor pool in the USA," Videk Wadhwa, a professor at
Duke University's Master of Engineering Management Program, said to Baseline Magazine in 2008. Wadhwa also
rejected the shortage notion based on wages.
"It doesn't add up. We live in a free economy," Wadhwa told Baseline.
"If we were sitting in a government-controlled economy it would be one
thing, but in a free economy what happens ... when shortages begin to develop
is that prices rise and the money compensates for the shortage."
Yet, even with an abundance of technically able graduates in the United States, according to the report, many in the field are
rejecting these areas for fear of being outsourced. The AFL-CIO
report said:
"A study by Rutgers University
released in October 2009 found that while the U.S. is still producing enough
skilled graduates in core STEM disciplines to fill
industry needs, many highly qualified U.S. students in STEM fields leave the "pipeline"
from STEM college major to STEM career possibly
based on perceptions that STEM careers are highly
susceptible to offshoring."
The report also took a stab at the U.S. government's lack of reporting on the H-1B visa
program as mandated by law and said USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services) has not released a fully updated report since 2005. text
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