Economy
and Job Market in Silicon Valley (CNN
transcript)
by Kevin Hattori (Reporter)
NEXT@CNN
CNN
14 September 2002
The
following is a transcript of a 14 September
interview on NEXT@CNN,
which prominently displayed
LeEarl Bryant's July engineering unemployment
letter to Congress on IEEE-USA letterhead.
KEVIN
HATTORI: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN from San
Francisco's Golden Gate Park.
It's
no secret the economy has really hurt the job
market in Silicon Valley. And it's raising new
scrutiny for highly skilled foreign workers. The
federal H1-B visa program grants them special
immigration status. But critics say the program
is taking jobs away from American workers.
(BEGIN
VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI
(voice-over): These days, computer programmer
Pete Bennett is building boats for his kids
instead of software.
PETE
BENNETT, COMPUTER PROGRAMMER: Well, I was a
cabinetmaker for 15 years.
HATTORI:
But after more than a decade in high tech, this
year Bennett has worked on just one software
project so far, a victim of the economic
slowdown and, he says, an immigration program
that's making the job market even worst.
BENNETT:
The American citizens are getting hurt. The H1-B
workers are getting hurt. And something needs to
be done to straighten this thing out -- and
quick.
HATTORI:
Bennett believes the federal H1-B visa program,
which allows nearly 200,000 skilled workers a
year into the U.S., is unnecessary and being
abused.
HATTORI
(on camera): Bottom line, are H1-B visa holders
taking jobs that American citizens could be
filling?
BENNETT:
That's the general consensus among my peers, and
myself.
HATTORI:
He's not alone. An organization representing
nearly 250,000 high-tech professionals has
written to Congress. [This is where IEEE-USA
letterhead was displayed]. They want to know why
Americans are getting laid off while workers
from abroad continue to work. The H1-B program
was supposed to give skilled overseas workers
jobs when qualified Americans cannot be found.
The visas were initially capped at 65,000 in
1998, but Congress upped it to 195,000 last
year. HATTORI: In fact, perhaps because of the
U.S. economic slump, H1-B applications are down
dramatically, 48 percent fewer so far this year
compared to last. But critics say the decline is
not keeping pace with layoffs here in the U.S.
Norm
Matloff is a professor at the University of
California at Davis, who has studied hiring
practices at high-tech companies.
NORM
MATLOFF, UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA-DAVIS: What
Congress ought to do is just cancel the whole
H1-B program. And in its place put a very small
program with very strong protections, and
without the loopholes they have now.
HATTORI:
Loopholes that, critics say, for example, let
companies hire H1-B visa workers at lesser
paying positions than the jobs they actually
perform.
MATLOFF:
There is tailoring the job requirements, so that
only the foreign national -- you know, that's
the only person on the whole planet that would
qualify because you've deliberately set it up
that way.
HATTORI:
Mahesh Nagaranjaiah, who heads up a Silicon
Valley organization that counsels many H1-B visa
holders says they're missing the bigger picture
-- U.S. jobs are being exported anyway.
MAHESH
MAGARAJAIAH, H1-B VISA ADVOCATE: I don't
think American companies need to find loopholes
in the H1-B programs, but they are sending work
back to other countries like India, Russia,
Israel, China, and other places, where the work
can be done at a lot cheaper cost.
HATTORI:
The industry also cites a dwindling pool of
qualified graduates in U.S. schools.
HARRIS
MILLER, INFORMATION TECH. ASSN. OF AMERICA:
Half of all graduate students in the math and
science programs are foreign students. When a
company is looking for the best and brightest,
particularly people with advanced degrees,
master degrees and Ph.D.s, frequently, many of
those candidates are born abroad.
BENNETT:
You got any friends at Technical that have been
laid off...
HATTORI:
Still, that hasn't stopped Pete Bennett who
takes his anti-H1-B campaign anywhere people
will listen in hopes of saving any jobs he can.
BENNETT:
These people are deserving American citizens,
and they deserve the opportunity to be employed.
And it's a tragedy the way the jobs have been
manipulated.
(END
VIDEOTAPE) |
