Four prominent scholars on Friday discussed the success of the high-tech industry in spreading the myth that there is a shortage of American workers in jobs related to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). While industry lobbyists, politicians, and the establishment media endlessly repeat the shortage claim in support for increased immigration and H-1 B visas, the actual evidence presented by the scholars shows no lack of qualified American workers.
On a Friday conference call organized by the office of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who has been waging a determined battle to protect American workers from the powerful interests seeking ever-increasing cheap alien labor, Prof. Hal Salzman of Rutgers University said current wages in the high-tech and information technology (IT) industries do not reflect a labor shortage. Ron Hira, a public policy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology who has worked on these issues for more than a decade, said that the H-1 B visas filling the alleged “gaps” are “doing more harm than good” to the U.S. science and engineering workforce. He noted that the majority of the H-1 B visas are being used for “cheaper workers” to further a business model of bringing in “lower-cost H-1 B workers to replace American workers.”
Michael Teitelbaum, a senior research associate at Harvard Law School, said as far as he knew, “nobody who is not associated with the industry that is engaged in a rather effective and expensive generalized “campaign to clamor about the “widespread shortages of scientists and engineers” has been able to provide the evidence of such shortages. Norm Matloff, a professor of computer science at University of California Davis, said the high-tech industry has gotten a “free ride” from the media and enjoys a very “positive image” in what he said has “really been a non-debate.”
Posted 5/19/14 by Andrew Lewis