TECH WORKER SHORTAGEDebate Over H-1B Visas Shines Spotlight on U.S. Tech Worker Shortages
The debate over H-1B overlooks some important questions: Why does the U.S. rely so heavily on foreign workers for the tech industry, and why is it not able to develop a homegrown tech workforce?
A heated debate has recently erupted between two groups of supporters of President Donald Trump. The dispute concerns the H-1B visa system, the program that allows U.S. employers to hire skilled foreign workers in specialty occupations – mostly in the tech industry.
On the one hand, there are people like Donald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon, who has called the H-1B program a “total and complete scam.” On the other, there are tech tycoons like Elon Musk who think skilled foreign workers are crucial to the U.S. tech sector.
The H-1B visa program is subject to an annual limit of new visas it can issue, which sits at 65,000 per fiscal year. There is also an additional annual quota of 20,000 H-1B visas for highly skilled international students who have a proven ability to succeed academically in the United States.
The H-1B program is the primary vehicle for international graduate students at U.S. universities to stay and work in the United States after graduation. At Rice University, where I work, much of STEM research is carried out by international graduate students. The same goes for most American research-intensive universities.
As a computer science professor – and an immigrant – who studies the interaction between computing and society, I believe the debate over H-1B overlooks some important questions: Why does the U.S. rely so heavily on foreign workers for the tech industry, and why is it not able to develop a homegrown tech workforce?
The US as a Global Talent Magnet
The U.S. has been a magnet for global scientific talent since before World War II.
Many of the scientists who helped develop the atomic bomb were European refugees. After World War II, U.S. policies such as the Fulbright Program expanded opportunities for international educational exchange.
Attracting international students to the U.S. has had positive results.
Among Americans who have won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, medicine or physics since 2000, 40% have been immigrants.
Tech industry giants Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google were all founded by first- or second-generation immigrants. Furthermore, immigrants have founded more than half of the nation’s billion-dollar startups since 2018.
Stemming the Inflow of Students
Restricting foreign graduate students’ path to U.S. employment, as some prominent Trump supporters have called for, could significantly reduce the number of international graduate students in U.S. universities.
About 80% of graduate students in American computer science and engineering programs – roughly 18,000 students in 2023 – are international students.
