U.S. businesses want fewer restrictions on skilled foreign workers

Published 28 July 2011

On Tuesday representatives from two major U.S. companies, Microsoft and Nasdaq, headed to the Hill to testify before a Senate subcommittee on immigration policies and its effects on highly skilled foreign workers; speaking before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general Counsel, urged lawmakers to ease restrictions and immigration laws for skilled overseas workers

On Tuesday representatives from two major U.S. companies, Microsoft and Nasdaq, headed to the Hill to testify before a Senate subcommittee on immigration policies and its effects on highly skilled foreign workers.

Speaking before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, urged lawmakers to ease restrictions and immigration laws for skilled overseas workers.

Smith said, “If done right, attracting the talents of the best and brightest from other countries can help, rather than hurt, prospects for American workers because in an innovation economy, jobs often beget jobs.”

Smith said that while the United States continues to suffer from high unemployment, jobs for high-skilled technology workers have been left vacant.

Bob Greifeld, the president and CEO of Nasdaq, echoed these arguments adding that nearly one-third of graduates from U.S. universities are returning to their home countries resulting in the loss of an estimated 17,000 skilled graduates in science, technology, mathematics, and engineering each year.

Greifeld also said that cumbersome visa restrictions are causing U.S. technology firms to lose their competitive edge as they are having trouble recruiting foreign-born entrepreneurs. To help remedy this situation, he urged lawmakers to review legislation on H-1B work visas.

“Current immigration policy is robbing America of the next generation of great companies. I believe that Google, Yahoo and eBay — many of the job drivers of the last twenty years — would likely not be founded in America today,” he said. “Increasing H-1B numbers is no longer enough. We need to admit and keep entrepreneurs here so that the creative dynamism of our marketplace has the very best skills and minds.”

Ronil Hira, a professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, who was also present at the hearing, argued that skilled foreign workers are taking jobs in the technology industry that would otherwise go to U.S. workers.

“For at least the past five years the employers receiving the most H-1B and L-1 visas are using them to offshore tens of thousands of high-wage, high-skilled American jobs,” Hira said.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) criticized the executives and asked that American companies focus on hiring Americans first before turning to foreigners.

“Why is it so much to ask for your company to look for American workers first and foremost?” Grassley asked.

“I’ve spent a lot of time and effort into rooting out fraud and abuse in our visa programs, specifically the H-1B and L visa programs. I have always said these programs can and should serve as a benefit to our country, our economy and our U.S. employers,” he said. “However, it is clear they are not working as intended, and the programs are having a detrimental effect on American workers.”

In response, Smith argued that while promoting local workers should be a priority, education is a “long term goal” and the country should look at policies that attract highly skilled foreigners who can contribute to the U.S. economy.

“In today’s economy, jobs often follow the talent supply, not the reverse,” he said. “This means that countries with the strongest talent supply will have an advantage in attracting and keeping jobs; it will be those countries whose economies thrive.”