NC missing out on highly-skilled workers
Published June 11, 2014
By Chris Sinclair, Cornerstone Solutions and NC SPIN panelist, June 10, 2014.
Lucrative jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields attract highly skilled workers and add jobs to our economy more rapidly than any other industry. However, the growth of these industries has exceeded the available skilled workforce in the United States. Unfortunately, our outdated and inefficient immigration policy makes it difficult to hire qualified foreign-born workers.
Our nation’s dysfunctional immigration system has tremendous impact in North Carolina. According to a study recently released by the Partnership for a New American Economy (PNAE), the Raleigh-Durham area is estimated to have missed out on creating 2,557 tech jobs for U.S. born workers as a direct result of the 2007 and 2008 lotteries, including as many as 1,822 jobs for native-born, less skilled workers in the tech industry.
Companies in the technological industry are largely dependent on the H-1B visa program, which allows the hire of skilled foreign-workers. Current U.S. policies arbitratily place a yearly cap of 65,000 on the number of available H-1B visas, and demand greatly exceeds supply. In fact, demand has historically been so high that a lottery system has been created to simplify the selection process. Foreign-workers are endorsed by employers who have promised them a job, then are randomly selected from the large pool of applicants. A selection process based on the outcome of a lottery rather than merit and capability jeopordizes our free-market principles.
Other nations have capitalized on the inadequacies of our broken immigration system by creating policies which attract highly skilled immigrant workers. As a result, these countries are enjoying an increased number of jobs and new businesses, imploved employment rates, and economic prosperity due to the influx of foreign-born professionals. Lost opportunities translate to significant revenue losses in the U.S., and hinder our economic recovery and growth. Something must be done this year to fix our broken immigration system.
June 11, 2014 at 10:30 am
Norm Kelly says:
Commenting before reading again. This may become obvious soon.
I know what will help NC attract highly skilled workers. What libs call Comprehensive Immigration Reform, but what THINKING people call Illegal Alien Amnesty. Sure fire way to attract & retain highly skilled workers is to flood the job market with low-to-no skill workers. Not only will this improve the job outlook for highly skilled workers, it will obviously increase the starting pay for entry level & low skill workers. This is just obvious; can't be argued with. Just ask you friendly neighborhood lib & you'll know also!
Off to read. Will be back.
Back now.
Attracting more highly skilled foreign born workers has nothing to do with the immigration reform plan currently being considered by Congressional Demons or the idiotic ideas of the occupier. As a matter of fact, the immigration reform plan of the demons, what thinking people would logically & rightly call illegal alien amnesty, will do more to harm the influx of highly skilled foreign born workers than it will to improve the job market for ANYONE. How exactly does repeating amnesty plans of the past produce results different from what's happened in the past. The demons in Washington are proving the old adage about hitting your head on the wall. When it hurts, stop. When you get a headache, if you continue to hit your head on the wall, you can be properly described as an idiot. Did amnesty for illegal aliens work the last time? Did it stop the influx of illegal aliens? No? Then why would WE believe the lie from Washington this time? Would fundamental immigration reform as proposed by the lib central planners help the economy and improve the financial lives of ANY native born American citizen? If you think so, how would dumping millions of illegal aliens suddenly pardoned of their law-breaking onto the newly crafted socialized medicine plan (what libs call obamacare!) positively affect everyone? Would dumping millions more onto the scheme help the scheme or hurt the scheme? Since the scheme is already projected to bankrupt the country, reduce service to citizens, and invade our medical privacy, how would dumping millions more help the scheme? Don't forget to add that a large percentage of the newly accepted law-breakers would qualify for subsidized or free medical insurance under the occupier's scheme. How would the nation deal with this?
Is it possible to treat highly skilled foreign born workers different than low skilled illegal immigrants who jumped the border? Shouldn't comprehensive immigration reform differentiate between highly skilled foreign born workers who already have a job lined up from border-jumpers who come here to take advantage of our system? Most of the border jumpers actually DO come here to scam the system. Free education. Pay under the table. Free medical care. Automatic citizenship for kids born here. Then sympathetic lib pols who say it's wrong to deport the parents of kids who are now citizens. This ignores the fact that the parents purposely broke OUR laws in order to have an anchor baby to take advantage of our system(s).
Comprehensive immigration reform as defined by libs is destructive. It is foolish. It must not pass. Republicans and thinking people need to stand against another idiotic plan put forth by socialists who no longer have the best interests of either their constituents or the nation at heart.
See, even starting my comments before reading another lib post produces a sane response. Libs are so predictable. And so scary!
June 11, 2014 at 10:41 am
Tom Hauck says:
Thank you for an interesting column.
I agree that we are hurting ourselves by not allowing more H-1B visas. At this time we seem to be allowing in more illegal children than educated workers.
The sad thing is that your column did not mention that one of the main reasons that we need more foreign STEM workers is because of the failure of our education system.
Hopefully your next column will highlight the failure of our current K to 12 education system. The 2012 - 13 North Carolina End-of-Grade test results show that 32% of all the children passed the Math and Reading tests which means 68% or more than two thirds failed. How can we continue a great country with over two thirds not knowing what they are doing -- and probably getting passed to the next level -- to know even less until they drop out and be a lifetime burden to the rest.
