Some of the claims seem to suggest that Arizona is about to turn into a police state.

Better to Keep Your Mouth Shut and …

I would encourage anyone criticizing the law to read the text before launching into a critique. First, nothing in the text of the law gives law enforcement officials the right or power to stop, question, arrest, and detain any individual they suspect may be in the U.S. illegally. That can only happen if a person has been detained because they are suspected of a crime or a violation of the law, such as a traffic violation when identification is asked for. Even then it’s debatable that they will do so. Phoenix has among the lowest ratios of public-safety officers to residents (3.3 per 1,000. New York has 6.5) among major cities in America. The police likely have enough to do as it is. It’s doubtful that they’ll suddenly stop everything else they’re doing and start detaining anyone who looks Hispanic.

Many cities and groups are planning boycotts of Arizona. That tends to be more talk than action. Speeches about boycotts play well to the cameras, but the record shows that not much happens when the lenses are turned away. Despite all the populist anger at certain Middle Eastern countries and Venezuela, we continue to do business with them. And of course, we aren’t exactly going to stop trading with China despite the People’s Republic having such a stellar record on human rights. Business contracts are generally written for the long-term, and with supply chains extending around the world, attempting to disrupt them over some ill-conceived outrage is unlikely to be supported by most executives. Tourism boycotts may occur, but they are not likely to be widespread either. Centuries of systematic discrimination against native populations in Mexico and Canada have not prevented legions of Americans from vacationing in Cancun and Vancouver. If anything, the opposite may happen: if SB 1070 results in lower crime in Arizonan cities, they’re more likely to attract both tourists and business.

Hypocrites of the World Unite

Press coverage of this law has been rather disingenuous, especially given that this type of legislation is the norm in other countries. It would be utterly hypocritical of citizens of most other countries to claim any outrage over SB 1070. In France, Germany, and much of Western Europe, laws applying to immigrants carry even more stringent provisions. Japanese law requires that all foreigners must carry an alien registration card at all times and present it to the police without any reason when requested. Failure to do so results in a $2,000 fine. The French police have the right to stop and question anyone suspected of being in the country illegally, at any time, and not just in the context of another violation of the law. Discrimination against foreigners from certain countries is the norm in Europe. In Switzerland and Austria, being from an Eastern European or Middle Eastern country means an automatic premium for most types of insurance. Those practice have not resulted in boycotts of French wines, Japanese cars, or Swiss Army knives.

In short then, not much is likely to happen, beyond some people getting dyspepsia.

The Problem with Immigration (policy, that is)

Our immigration policy is a mess. Much of what we have today has its roots in conditions after the end of the second world war. The most visible problem has to do with who’s eligible to immigrate. It’s either a lottery, or primarily based on unifying families. Most other countries give preference to people with needed skills or specific talents. Ours barely touches on that. Eligibility for H1-B visas is equally applicable to hairstylists and software engineers. The number of visas is arbitrarily decided, with no basis in demand for skills. This makes no sense at all.

Much of the anger toward illegal immigrants is directed at migrant workers, primarily working in construction and agriculture. Admittedly there are employers seeking to exploit labor from across the border, but the evidence shows that such employers are a tiny minority. Studies going back decades show that much of the labor from Mexico and South America works in areas where there just are not enough domestic workers available. The argument that’s usually made is that if only employers would pay a high-enough wage, then Americans would be willing to take those jobs. That is not an accurate assessment of the situation. For one, margins in agriculture are extremely low, and most producers have no capacity to raise their prices to counter the effect of paying more wages. Forcing them to pay higher wages will only result in more agriculture being done overseas as is already happening. Second, even with 9.7% unemployment, those who are out of work are not looking for jobs working in fields. Third, even if there were higher wages available, is that what most people aspire to, mind-numbing manual labor?

The solutions to the problem have been available for a long time: a guest worker visa for agricultural workers, and a change in immigration policy to favor the more talented workers. But it doesn’t seem likely this will happen anytime soon.

SB 1070 reflects Arizonans’ frustration with the federal government’s lack of action on immigration. Regardless of who’s to blame, nothing has been done to address the problem. A state cannot pass laws on immigration reform on its own, but it can enforce what’s already there. This is all the more reason that the reaction to the law is odd, considering that some 70% of Arizonans support it. Since we live in a democracy, Arizona’s lawmakers are only responding to the will of the people — which is presumably what they were elected to do. I’m all for immigration reform, as I’ve written on many an occasion on ERE, but I would not attempt to substitute my judgment for that of about 5 million Arizonans.

Even if your organization does not employ individuals in Arizona or have employees who travel to or through Arizona, chances are the new legislation will impact your organization in one way or another. SB 1070 has rocketed race relations issues, on a decline in recent years, back to a spotlighted position on the national and some would argue global stage.

While you may or may not support Arizona’s attempt to curb illegal immigration, the important thing is that you take action to prevent it from negatively impacting the productivity of your organization.

Potential SB 1070 Impacts to Prepare For

While Arizona Senate Bill 1070 is only applicable within the confines of the state, its passage causes ramifications that extend much farther in scope that all organizations will need to prepare for. Some of the issues you should be contemplating include:

Ramifications for Organizations with No Ties to Arizona

• Employee conflict — SB 1070 has reignited debate about immigration issues in the United States, and in forums across the country individuals who feel strongly one way or the other are talking. Should the debate spill into the workplace either accidentally or as a means to instigate conflict, populations most connected to the issue will likely be affected emotionally. Emotional conflicts can wreak serious havoc on productivity levels and often require managers and HR representatives to engage in conflict resolution. It might be a good time to remind employees and managers about avoiding bias in the workplace and to review all processes that relate to conflict resolution, communication, and performance management.
• Specific concerns for Hispanic employees — while SB 1070 doesn’t focus specifically on individuals of Hispanic origin, Arizona does sit on the border with Mexico, and much of the illegal immigration plaguing the state is attributed to Hispanic immigrants seeking employment in the U.S. How your organization reacts to the passage of SB 1070 will send a clear message to first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants about your organization’s view on the value and need for immigrant labor. Missteps may have long term implications on your employment brand, recruiting ability, and sales potential.
• A renewed focus on diversity — immigration and diversity are closely linked, so as the debate about immigration rockets to center stage, so too will diversity issues. While your organization may take a strong position supporting diversity, it is likely that small issues that would otherwise resolve themselves may take on more charged paths, resulting in an increase in formal complaints of discrimination.
• A renewed focus on employment eligibility — SB 1070 makes it a felony in Arizona to not verify employment eligibility via E-Verify and to maintain records of verification for all employees. The increased visibility of the consequences of hiring individuals not legally permitted to work in the United States might lead to organizations outside Arizona double-checking their existing workers, tightening up of hiring policies and processes, and an increase in eligibility questions from hiring managers.
• Economic boycotts of Arizona — organizations large and small are lining up to voice their distaste for Arizona’s actions by boycotting companies based in Arizona and prohibiting business travel to or through the state. California’s two largest cities, San Francisco and Los Angeles, have already taken action to sever contracts with vendors based in Arizona, and state lawmakers are considering expanding the boycott statewide. Large conventions are also canceling plans to hold events in the state, the largest so far being the 11,000-member Immigration Lawyers Association. While your organization may or may not use its economic prowess to influence political issues, chances are some of your employees may feel strongly about doing so and refuse to participate in company activities that involve Arizona.
• Wage pressure — individuals of Hispanic origin, including many from Mexico, make up a significant portion of the working population in a number of states. Employers in the agricultural, hospitality, foodservice, and construction industries in Nevada, Colorado, and Utah may find supplies of non-immigrant workers who bounce from employer to employer under special non-immigrant visas in shorter supply. As the supply of labor decreases, labor costs are likely to increase. Other states bordering Mexico (California, New Mexico, and Texas) however, will likely see an increase in non-immigrant labor interest.
• Global issues — the extensive international press coverage surrounding this issue may make it more difficult for U.S. companies to sell products or to recruit in countries where the population is sympathetic to open borders. Even if your firm isn’t involved in the conflict, expect some guilt by association.
• Union concerns — many unions appear to be actively protesting the renewed focus on immigration status, so if any of your employee classes are represented by a union or is the subject of union organizers, expect more questions and an increase in the number of grievances/complaints related to this issue.
• Retention issues — as the economy heats up, retention will become a major issue regardless of this immigration conflict. Expect all politically motivated employees to use “how you handle this immigration issue” as a factor in their decision on whether to stay or leave.

Ramifications for Organizations That Employ Individuals in or Who Travel to Arizona

• Travel and exposure issues — SB 1070 gives law enforcement officials the right to stop, question, arrest, and detain any individual they suspect may be in the U.S. illegally. While it has the potential to impact many employee populations, individuals who work in the transportation industry or in locations subject to a large police presence may be even more impacted. Employers may find existing employees with a legal right to work in the U.S. but prone to racial profiling to avoid certain situations.
• Productivity issues — whatever happens in your employees’ personal lives will also impact their ability to concentrate on their work. If an individual employee or their close friend or family member has an immigration concern, it likely will negatively affect the employee’s morale and productivity. Even school-related immigration issues may distract your employees focus and productivity.
• Employee transfers — expect a portion of your current employees, especially those most likely to be profiled as possible illegal immigrants, to show an increased interest in transferring out of the state. You may also experience an increase in difficulty getting liberal-leaning employees to transfer into the state.
• Recruiting issues — Recruiting individuals from outside the state to work within Arizona will be more complicated. While individuals who support the law might be more willing to work in Arizona, others including diverse individuals and liberal-leaning individuals would likely be the more difficult to sway.
• Retention issues — Expect a portion of your current employees, both Hispanic and non-Hispanic, to want to leave the state. If you can’t provide them with transfer opportunities, they may choose to leave your firm and seek employment with another organization out of state.
• Business impacts — firms subject to statewide boycotts, including those in the travel and hospitality industry, need to prepare for short-term downturns. The stock price of individual firms might also be impacted if analysts and the public perceive that the firm may benefit or be harmed by the immigration issue.
• HR issues — while few of the bills provision specifically focus on employer responsibilities, the bill has far-reaching implications for the workforce in general, and HR leaders need to be proactive at identifying and responding to employee concerns, including those voiced anonymously. Periodically asking the employee population what information they need, and understanding their expectations regarding your organization’s response will help ensure minimal impact. Establish a single point of contact for employees and managers who will be held accountable for managing the overall response to the issue. Corporate council will need to be consulted to determine if practices and procedures (including privacy issues) need to be updated as a result of the new law.
• Absenteeism — expect and increase in absenteeism and late arrivals by employees likely to be profiled as illegal immigrants by authorities and detained while legal status is verified.
• Management training — local managers and supervisors will need to be provided with training or educational materials to prepare them for questions and problems encountered. Executives will need coaching on what to say and what not to say to employees and the media.
• Local wage pressures — even more so than in the rest of the U.S., fewer available workers within Arizona will mean increased pressure to raise wages in order to attract the best.
• Supplier issues — your suppliers and vendors that have large Hispanic employee populations might experience more service interruptions as labor issues manifest.

Final Thoughts

Many corporate executives and HR professionals consider the immigration issue a political one, but it is also a major business issue with ramifications that need to be addressed with decisive plans and clear communications. The initial challenge is for senior management and HR to develop a process that can identify likely issues early on, and develop a response plan or implement preemptive measures to prevent the issue from occurring. If your organization hasn’t set aside some time to assess how this issue will impact your business and your employees, the time to act is now. Obviously the immigration issue will become even more important if Congress acts on immigration reform or if more states enact similar legislation. The key phrase to remember is that “it’s better to be prepared than surprised.”

First announced two years ago in August and almost as quickly blocked by the courts, the “no match” rule required employers to fire workers who couldn’t resolve discrepancies in their Social Security information. The rule took its name from the letters the Social Security Administration sent to employers informing them there was no match between SSA records and what the employer provided.

Homeland Security laid out a fairly rigorous series of steps that, if followed, immunized an employer from legal consequences for hiring the “no match” worker. Termination of the employee was one of the steps when a mismatch couldn’t be resolved.

The AFL-CIO, ACLU, and other worker and immigrants’ rights groups sued and won a restraining order preventing the “no match” rule from being implemented. Other groups, including agri-businesses, farm owners, and some builders also opposed the rule, despite its safe harbor provision.

Among the arguments the groups made was the existence of errors in Social Security records, and that the rule would keep employers from hiring foreign-born workers, or those who appeared to be, rather than risk a no match ruling.

With the court siding with the labor groups, and the growing emphasis being placed on the E-Verify program, not much has happened with the no match program. The U.S. Social Security Administration has even stopped sending no match letters.

Finally in July, Homeland Security threw in the towel, saying it would rescind its proposal. That was done Wednesday when the government published a final rule in the Federal Register. The recession takes effect on Nov. 6th.

Testifying last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano credited the states for the growth of E-Verify saying, “The growth is continuing at a solid clip, due in large part to state laws requiring the use of E-Verify. Currently, an average of 1,000 employers are signing up for E-Verify each week.”

Run by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, E-Verify allows employers to verify work eligibility by checking information from an employee’s I-9 against the government’s database. Name, date of birth, and social security number are matched against government records. The program is voluntary at the federal level, though some states –  Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island South Carolina, and Utah — require participation by in-state employers.

Napolitano said that last year, 14 percent of all new hires were verified through the electronic system.

That number could grow dramatically if a June 30th deadline holds for federal contractors to sign up with E-Verify. The deadline has changed three times since President George Bush first issued an executive order last June. The order made E-Verify mandatory for federal contractors with projects exceeding $100,000 and for sub-contractors with projects exceeding $3,000.

It was to take effect  January 15, 2009. But after being sued by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, SHRM and other groups, the government agreed to postpone implementation until, first, Feb. 20th, then May 2st, and now to June 30th.

The Obama Administration has signaled its support for the overall E-Verify program, recommending a $12 million increase in the program’s $100 million budget for next fiscal year. In written testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Napolitano said the funds would be used to improve the performance of the system.

That’s one of the key objections by businesses to using E-Verify. The Chamber of Commerce, in its lawsuit, claims among other things that false results could lead to discrimination complaints against employers. Napolitano, in her Judiciary Committee testimony, said 96.1 percent of the employees run through the system are found to be eligible to work in the U.S. However, 3.9 percent of the cases required further investigation, which is up to the employer to do.

Detractors insist, however, that 4 percent of all queries result in errors due to typographical mistakes, mismatched names, and missing information in the government system.

Two Congressmen last month introduced a bill to replace E-Verify with a mandatory system based on a system used by states to enforce child support payments. A similar bill last year failed to make it through.

The recently passed “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009,” aka the stimulus bill, includes a provision that restricts companies receiving federal bailout funds from hiring immigrant workers on H-1B visas. This provision was added by senators Charles Grassley, from Iowa, and Bernie Sanders, from Vermont. Considering that engineers, scientists, and immigrants with advanced degrees are generally falling over themselves to get to those two hubs of technological innovation and economic growth, one can understand the motivations of these lawmakers. They clearly have an informed perspective that most others lack.

The Last Refuge of a Scoundrel

One would hope that the Messrs. Grassley and Sanders had done their homework, but that would be giving them too much credit.

Their basis for this provision is an Associated Press story that claimed that banks that had accepted federal bailout money had tried to hire thousands of workers from overseas, at a time when they were cutting U.S. workers. Stuff like this is like a red flag to a bull — especially when the bull might be looking at a tough reelection and has a need to burnish his pro-American credentials. Never mind that the story was grossly inaccurate or just flat-out wrong. The reporter counted up visa applications from a dozen banks and found more than 21,800 over six years. Trouble is, he never bothered to find out how many of the visas were approved, much less how many immigrant workers were ever hired.

Further investigation revealed that none of the 12 largest banks receiving bailout funds had actually hired substantial numbers of foreign workers. An analysis by the Kansas City Star revealed that one of the largest banks — Bank of America — hired just 66 such workers, of which 51 were for its global equities arm. With a workforce of 210,000 that represents 0.03 percent being immigrant workers. Details, details.

To give the two gentlemen their due — this was political grandstanding at its finest.

The measure was tabled as a separate motion and approved by a voice vote. It would take special courage for a senator to be caught on camera voting against a measure labeled “Employ American Workers Act.” The esteemed lawmakers and others of their ilk have been known to claim that it is intent that counts — that the banks and other employers, if allowed to do so, would hire as many immigrant workers as possible at low salaries, to save a buck.

There have been abuses of the H-1B program but there is no evidence that these are pervasive. Rest assured if there was even a hint of widespread abuse by any large employer or industry then some state attorney general or U.S. Attorney would be investigating it. Immigrant workers make up less than 3% of the professional labor force. Hiring one is cumbersome, expensive, and difficult. An employer that does so has usually exhausted other options. Anyone who thinks otherwise should file an H-1B petition themselves and experience the pleasures of dealing with the bureaucracy responsible for approving work visas.

Risking our Future

This highlights a fundamental problem that is developing in U.S. immigration policy. We are increasingly frustrating the efforts of highly qualified talent from reaching us. This may seem to be a contrarian view in the midst of a deep recession, but this type of legislation is incredibly short-sighted and can have serious negative consequences. There’s also the question of who exactly is supposed to benefit from it? The vast majority of immigrant talent that gets hired on an H-1B visa includes scientists and IT professionals. As of the end of January the Bureau of Labor statistics reports an unemployment rate of 4.8% for employees in those categories. That doesn’t quite show that there’s an abundance of talent available.

I’ve written about this in the past, but the point needs to be made again that our needs for talent will continue to grow, as will those of other countries that are not sitting idly. The White House’s just released economic forecast along with the budget predicts that the U.S. will see economic growth of 3.2% next year, climbing to 4% by 2013. To put that in perspective: for that to occur the economy will need to be adding over half a trillion dollars in GDP every year by 2013. Whether that actually happens remains to be seen, but the growth is not going to come from Vermont and Iowa. Last time I checked, milk and corn were not high-growth industries. Our centers of technology and innovation will suffer disproportionately from the reduction in visas.

One may think that domestic supply will easily make up the difference, but that would be the wrong conclusion to reach. There is not an abundant supply of talent — domestic or foreign — to fuel the development of new and high-growth industries such as bio-technology and alternative energy. If we put up barricades, then the talent will simply go elsewhere. If Intel founder Andy Grove or Yahoo founder Jerry Yang had not come here they could have built their companies in other countries — and increasingly there are plenty of other countries that would welcome them.

There is some recognition that sanity needs to prevail. Senator Chuck Schumer has publicly vowed to overturn the H-1B restrictions. Some cynical types have claimed that he was influenced by the fact that a lot of banks receiving bailout funds were contributors to his campaign war chest, but I’m sure the gentleman’s motivations are pure. To suggest otherwise is insulting to the man.

But the fundamental issue remains that our immigration policy is deeply flawed. It has not fundamentally changed since the 1950s and does nothing to attract high quality talent. The process to obtain a visa or green card is a convoluted mess, tangled up between various governmental agencies — none of whom has any view of the big picture or any incentive to make things better. While our legislators pass laws on transporting chimps (the primate safety act), other countries focus on streamlining immigration procedures and simplifying the requirements for professional talent to reach them. Without major changes we stand to lose our edge in innovation, and jeopardize our future.

Within hours of BusinessWeek posting the story about the loss of 533,000 jobs in November, posters were complaining about the number of H-1B visas and other work permits the government is issuing. The Huffington Post’s special recession site has a give and take on the subject with the dishers outnumbering the defenders of temporary workers.

The criticism of U.S. foreign worker policy ebbs and flows with the economy, but it never entirely goes away. Witness the furor a year ago over the illegal immigration bill debated in Congress and eventually killed in the House of Representatives, despite the support of President Bush.

In 2005, in the midst of the national recovery that was especially strong in the IT sector, the USA president of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) warned, “The drop in computer programmers and rise in managers reflects the trend toward offshoring of programming jobs and the resulting need for professionals to manage outsourced projects.” Gerard A. Alphonse added, “…offshoring not only contributes significantly to U.S. high-tech unemployment, but also suppresses wages.”

The issue even came up early in the presidential election when both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama signaled they weren’t sold on outsourcing and might end tax breaks for companies that offshore.

And the debate about outsourcing and what it is doing to the U.S. continues; pro and con. The challenge however, is that there is no reliable source of data on how many jobs are in question. Plunkett Research offers some guidance concerning the size of the market economically, while two Canadian researchers found a small, but positive impact on the U.S. from service sector offshoring.

Only when it comes to temporary workers are there any reliable numbers. In the report for fiscal 2007, the Office of Immigration Statistics said 1.1 million temporary workers were admitted to the country. That number is merely the number of times individuals with some form of work visa passed through customs. It excludes those with green cards (permanent resident status), but includes all other form of work permits. However, the report shows that the number of admissions has been growing steadily, with the largest increase coming in two areas: seasonal agricultural workers and H-1B holders.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved just over 126,000 H-1B visa petitions in fiscal 2007 (which ended Sept. 30) despite a supposed cap of 65,000 plus 20,000 supplemental for persons with advanced degrees from U.S. schools.

Companies like Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, and Infosys are among the biggest users of the H-1B visa process.

The process for 2009 visas is already underway and there is no reason to believe the quota won’t be filled as early as it was last year. Nor is it likely that the cap will be reduced, despite President-elect Obama’s avowed desire to overhaul the immigration process.

Speaking to an Indian newspaper following a conference of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the U.S. consul general in Chennai, Andrew T. Simkin, said a change in the visa numbers was “Not likely.” “It is a serious thing requiring legal amendments and I do not think this could be a priority,” he was quoted as saying.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory works on a few easy little projects such as saving the environment, reducing oil dependence, and preventing terrorism. Recruiting for the last one — preventing terrorism and nuclear non-proliferation — is the work of Rob Dromgoole.

“A modern-day moon shot,” he says of this lofty work. Eight different recruiters at the lab recruit for about 615 hires annually (about half of them interns/students), among a workforce of about 4,200. Turnover is around 6-8%, tenure about 11 years.

Many employees have doctorates, and many masters’ degrees. About half of the hires come via referrals. The rest are from direct sourcing, Monster, CareerBuilder, Facebook, LinkedIn, and from colleges.

Some of the lab’s favorite schools, particularly for candidates with graduate degrees: University of Washington, Oregon State, Michigan, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon, and one we mentioned before: University of California-Davis.

The selling point of a job at the lab, which is one of 10 Energy Department Office of Science national labs, is, according to Dromgoole, the chance to do world-changing work.

“Having an impact and a chance to protect the country from a terrorist attack … investigating ways to get off the oil addiction … that’s the modern day moon shot,” he says.

Dromgoole notes that the United States is the “Saudi Arabia of coal, one of the world leaders in coal deposits.” But since coal is dirty, the lab is looking for ways to make it cleaner by, for example, storing emissions underground. The lab also works on such diverse projects as increasing the energy efficiency of buildings, as well as research on fuel cells. So job candidates (in addition to being promised they won’t fall into a black hole) are told they’ll have a chance to pick from a variety of interesting work. “Intel and Microsoft are telling them what products they are working on,” he says. “Here they have a lot of flexibility in terms of what they want to do. They’re not working for a company shareholder. They’re working for a country shareholder.”

Attracting people to a somewhat remote place near the Oregon-Washington border is a challenge. Having said that, it has been voted one of the top locations for scientists and engineers. And you can get a house for under $200,000 — and pay no state income tax.

The real-estate bust has made it hard to attract people from, say, San Diego and Los Angeles, Dromgoole says. When their $750,000 houses are now worth $550,000, they’re in no mood to sell them.

Another recruiting challenge is pay. While lab employees get a good retirement and health plan, “base salaries aren’t as high — competitive, but not the highest, like Google,” he says. “I can’t compete against Google. Though if it’s about the money, they’re not going to be a fit here anyway.”

The lab hires 84 foreign nationals annually. Not all of the organization’s jobs require a clearance, so it can bring in top talent from Bejing and elsewhere when it needs. Still, Dromgoole is concerned that the United States is tightening immigration as other countries — including, but not limited to Canada and European nations — expand it. On top of that, he says, only 6-7% of American college students want to go into science and engineering.

As you might imagine, Dromgoole is a fan of Raghav Singh’s immigration articles. He’s with Gerry Crispin on candidate treatment. And he agrees with Jeremy Eskenazi’s view that this recession is different. Different because recruiting the scientists the lab needs, he says, is still quite a challenge in a slower economy. And that’s not likely to change for a while. “These type of issues are beyond Democrat and Republican. If we don’t need to depend on oil from Iran and the Middle East and Venezuela, Americans are going to be more secure.”

I am pointing toward the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Bureau; erstwhile INS) H-1B quota for the year 2009 that will open its doors to applicants from around the world in April 2009. Every year, USCIS allows and issues 85,000 H-1B visas, out of which only 65,000 visas go to candidates with specialty skills across the world. The rest of the 20,000 visas are available for foreign candidates with higher degrees from schools in the United States, which is generally a master’s degree or higher. Most of the 65,000 H1-B visas go to hi-tech workers across the world whose technical skills in the field of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics are in high demand in the U.S. and Europe.

And so for companies and businesses dealing in the hi-tech industry, an opportunity to recruit professionals from this pool of qualified candidates is strategically important for growth, sustainment, and development of new products and services.

Although principles of recruiting remain the same, it takes a very different approach to recruit candidates from outside the country. Below are some of the pointers that recruiters must keep in mind to successfully recruit these professionals from outside the country. These points are a result of being tested as a recruiter in the global talent pool.

Getting Ready for the Long Haul

It takes a lot of preparation, planning, and commitment to recruit in a foreign market, and so before a company decides to start recruiting candidates outside the country, begin by forecasting your needs. Once the groundwork in terms of how many people, what skills, and when people are needed is done, the HR department must involve the recruiting team in planning the process of recruitment and selection. It’s important that recruiters are involved in the planning process so that:

• The HR department and recruiters understand the immigration/H-1B laws well because they can create some serious implications for a company both financially and in terms of future global recruitment if laws and rules are not followed correctly.
• The recruiters clearly understand the goals of recruitment and the plan to be followed because they are the ones to implement it. Besides, it would also look really unprofessional if the candidate — upon becoming an employee — realizes that things are different or have changed over a period of 12 months or more. This is a genuine possibility because 12 months or more is a long time for things to change in a company, and this may include change in the recruiting team, the HR team, the management team or the policies of the company.

This is also a good time to put together brochures and revamp the website and applications. Unless you are Google or Microsoft, there is going be a lot of competition to recruit people from this pool of candidates. You will have to sell your company to these candidates using your website and brochures with information about the company, its clients, its HR policies, benefits, and employee growth plan/path. It will also not hurt to provide some demographic information about the workforce of the company, and to give the candidates an overview about diversity in the company.

Stick to the Timeline

I call the recruiting process a long haul because the complete process from identifying the candidates and getting them onboard can take as much as 12 months or more. I like to call it a journey, because you start off with no candidates and over a period of time, some these candidates become friends, some remain good acquaintances, and some get lost along the way. An approximate timeline would include starting the process early on — some time in September of every year — so that recruitment, selection, and completing of non-immigrant worker application forms could be taken care of by March of next year. That way, your company will be ready to submit these non-immigrant visa applications by April 1st when USCIS opens up the quota for that fiscal year.

Once the visa is applied, accepted, and approved, it will be mostly a recruiter’s task or someone from human resources to guide these candidates through the visa interview process and work with them on arrival dates. Your candidates can start arriving in the states around October 1 because effective dates for these non-immigrant work visas is October 1 .

By the time these new hires show up at your company’s doorstep, your recruiting team would have spent an incredible 12 months or more working with them.

Starting Early

One will be surprised to know that there is fierce competition to recruit these candidates on these specialty visas. Companies big and small go beyond the boundaries of the U.S. to recruit these candidates with highly specialized skills not commonly available in the U.S. Begin the process early before everyone does, because this can give you some lead time in selling your company. It also helps in building rapport with candidates. Starting early is even more important from a company’s perspective because the cost of applying for a non-immigrant visa has gone up substantially in the past two years. To give you an idea: just the application fee to apply for a single non-immigrant visa today is $2,320.00. Add another $700 to a $1,000 in attorney fee on top of this application fee. More information on the fee can be found at www.uscis.gov.

Starting early will give your company enough time to not only assess the candidate’s skills but also to assess whether it’s worth investing that much time and money.

Successful recruiters understand the premise that recruiting competent candidates from all over the world is a time-consuming process that requires a lot of patience and persistence. They also understand that dealing with candidates in different socio-economic settings across the world calls for a cautious and calculated approach. Getting acquainted with the culture of a country to which the target candidates belong to can come in handy during the recruitment process.

Switch on your salesman instincts and nurture a working relationship with the candidate by staying in contact via phone or email on a regular basis. Meeting the candidate on an occasion or two can be really helpful in making the candidate comfortable with the company. Clearly defining the recruitment and selection process will help the candidate make an informed decision.

Evaluation

Since so much time and money is involved in global recruitment, evaluation of the recruitment and selection process is a must. Evaluation in terms of company’s preparation for global recruitment, how many recruiters are needed to focus on this effort every year, cost involved per candidate, time spent with candidate before acceptance, types of questions that candidates ask, FAQs, etc will help in identifying deficiencies and strengths in the recruitment and selection process so that the same mistakes are not repeated again. Evaluation will also give a better idea about what regions of the world to target for these niche skills.
A strategy successful in one market may not be successful in another.

The Australian Parliament recently eased immigration laws with a goal of attracting more high-skilled labor. This was in recognition of the fact that given past and future decreasing birth rates coupled with increasing demand for skills will make skilled labor the quintessential scarce resource for the next fifty years. In this hemisphere Congress wisely spent the time passing resolutions recognizing July as National Watermelon Month and declaring soil an essential natural resource (it’s about time).

Change We Don’t Believe In

Complacency about attracting high-skilled talent can have severe negative consequences. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a growth of 40%, or over 500,000 new jobs in IT-related positions through 2016. Domestic supply is not enough to cover this need at current levels. The number of degrees granted across all IT-related categories is about 54,000 annually, and trending downward. Adding to the supply-demand gap is that the number of workers in the 55-and-older group will grow by 47% in the next eight years — approximately 5.5 times the 8.5% growth of the labor force overall, with significant numbers looking for early retirement. The direct impact of this is a reduction in GDP of several hundred billion dollars and billions in losses of taxes to the government. Indirectly, the impact from lesser innovation and output will only magnify these losses.

While our legislators seem to be gorging on spiked watermelon, other countries are treating issues relating to talent with far more seriousness. Many countries have liberalized their immigration policies for high-skilled talent. That poses a major challenge to America’s historic domination in innovation and attracting high-skill immigrants. Australia, Canada, and New Zealand are the most aggressive; they conceive of immigrants as a source of economic growth, and consider highly skilled immigrants to be especially valuable contributors. Accordingly have long-standing immigration policies to attract them.

While a disproportionate number of skilled immigrants still come to the U.S., the numbers that are staying home or are going elsewhere is increasing. Over the last five years, the U.S. attracted an average of 73,000 skilled immigrants annually, down from about 107,000. That may still seem like a lot, but Canada attracted 56,000, Australia 20,000, and even tiny New Zealand managed to get 10,000.

The U.S. has had an extremely muddled approach to immigration and has done little to tilt the balance towards attracting high-skilled talent. As a consequence, barely 22% of immigrants are high-skilled workers. Other countries typically seek to have the highly skilled comprise 50 percent or more of total permanent immigration; the most recent figure for Australia was 65 percent.

The Audacity of Dopes

A big reason for lack of progress on changing immigration policies has to do with misinformation and myths pertaining to immigrant labor. Some stems from ignorance and some is nothing more than naked bigotry perpetuated by anti-immigrant groups. Some self-styled “experts” will indulge in any amount of demagoguery to further their agenda. For example, among the more ludicrous claims is that no education is required for any IT job; any programming language can be mastered in 30 days; and scientists and engineers possess no special skills.

These people often manage to find outlets for their rants, on certain news shows and even in hearings before Congress. The evidence they present tends to follow a fairly predictable pattern. It involves dubious statistics peppered with stories designed to evoke sympathy for their cause. A recurring theme is the case of some poor waif, who despite being brilliant, having excellent skills, and a great personality, is unable to find a job deserving of him. The sole reason for this unfortunate’s sufferings are all those employers engaged in a conspiracy to deprive anyone of a job if they can save a buck by finding a poor immigrant to do the work. What never gets mentioned is that immigrant workers make up less than 5% of the high-skilled workforce; in fields like IT, unemployment averages about 3% and wage growth has been consistent at about 3.9%. In fields like architecture and certain types of engineering, unemployment has averaged under 2%.

These numbers belie any claims that immigrant workers have negatively impacted employment or wages. Exceptions can always be found that prove the rule. The reasons a particular individual, despite being seemingly qualified, is struggling in finding employment is usually not because of a conspiracy among employers — it could be a case of misplaced expectations, a mismatch between the person’s skills and available jobs, or just an ability to interview well.

There are a lot of extremely talented and highly qualified automotive engineers who are out of work, but not because their jobs were filled by lower-paid immigrants. If there was even the smallest shred of evidence to support a claim that employers are systematically engaged in hiring immigrants to discriminate against citizens, then rest assured some state attorney-general would have turned it into a cause célèbre in her quest to become governor.

Losing the Edge

It isn’t just in attracting high-skilled immigrants that we’re ceding ground to other countries. The ability of the United States to attract foreign students is also deteriorating. The flow of students declined by about 70,000 per year after 2001, or some 25 percent, and rose elsewhere — in Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., and Canada. And this is likely to worsen as more countries enter the fray. We have no coherent national policy in regards to talent – either for developing or attracting. Without changes in our approach to talent, this is rapidly becoming a zero-sum game where there will be winners and losers.

Some of this was inevitable in a post-9/11 world. But we seem to have moved too far in the wrong direction, while ignoring the fact that other countries are not sitting idly by. Demands by industry that the number of H-1B visas available should be linked to gaps in supply and allocation of Green Cards should be tilted toward skilled workers are largely ignored. Then again, employers could just sign employees up for 30-day courses in programming and engineering.

In May 2006, President Bush committed that he would curtail illegal immigration and improve border security. A key part of his strategy included adding 6,000 new border patrol agents by the end of 2008. Abbott agreed to head up the agency’s recruitment function and take on the challenge of sourcing 180,000 applicants to meet the hiring quota of 6,000 new agents.

Abbott’s story sounds like it has all the makings of the first reality television series featuring the survival strategies of talent acquisition leaders.

New agents must be under 40, pass a physical fitness test, a medical exam, a background investigation, and demonstrate that they have the ability to learn a foreign language. Once they are hired, agents are assigned to work the border between California and Texas. After reviewing data from numerous sources and creating a prospective agent profile, Abbott’s strategy was to cast a wide net for applicants; in particular, he wanted to focus on mid-size cities where the demographics indicated there were large numbers of residents who fit the agent profile.

“In cities where we have a Border Patrol presence, the people know us and we have a positive image,” says Abbott. “But when you get into a city like Indianapolis, we don’t have a visible presence and what they’ve heard about the Border Patrol may not be all positive. Our first goal was to educate the public and inject ourselves into that market.”

Abbott engaged an outside firm and created a new employment brand that would not only drive a positive image of the agency, but educate prospective agents about a typical day on the job. Many of the new recruiting materials (like the video embedded below) blend applicant education with a Hollywood feel. To create recruiting messages that would resonate with the target audience, Abbott talked to current agents as well as external groups, then used the feedback to refine the messages until they were spot on.

“We solicited feedback from outside groups who gave us their perceptions about the agency,” says Abbott. “We wanted to understand what those perceptions were and then match our message up against those perceptions, so we weren’t creating materials in isolation.”

The agency reaches its target audience through a variety of media. The comprehensive recruiting and employment branding initiative (to be examined in more detail in the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership) has a look and feel that says big-budget-meets-strategic-workforce-analytics. So far both the tailored messages and the strategy appear to be working, because Abbott says the agency is hitting its 3,500 weekly applicant quota and is on target to meet its 2008 hiring goal. Of course there’s no pressure when the President sets your performance goals in front of the entire country.

“It’s the same here as it is anywhere else,” says Abbott. “If you don’t meet the numbers the same thing will happen to you in this job as would happen to you in any job.”

What few people know (and maybe even fewer care to) is that currently a fashion model coming to America has to compete for the same H1-B visas that every immigrant software engineer and developer does. This is a crisis. Summer is upon us and what are the editors of swimsuit editions supposed to do when visas run out on the first day they are available — take pictures in France and Photoshop in a background from California? Fast action is needed. Disaster looms. The fantasy lives of millions of teenage boys and voyeurs are in jeopardy.

Enter Anthony Weiner. The congressman from New York is riding (or taking the subway) to the rescue. Representative Weiner has sponsored a bill in Congress that would create a separate category of visas for fashion models, the P-4. If passed, the beauties would not be competing with the geeks and we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief. Weiner for President.

Jokes apart, the Weiner bill — HR 4080, does highlight a fundamental problem with U.S. immigration policy. With regards to talent we have no policy. What we do have are immigration laws dating to the 1940s that have been sporadically modified without much of a plan or any broader understanding of the strategic implications. That made little difference in the past with the U.S. being the best and, to some extent the only, destination for skilled talent.

While the U.S. is still a very attractive place, alternatives are emerging. I wrote about this in a recent article on increasing competition for talent from the European Union and other countries. The Blue Card program created by the EU is explicitly targeted at skilled workers, unlike the Green Card, which is predominantly a vehicle for reuniting families. Our immigration policy does little to attract high-caliber talent in fields like technology and sciences and does not differentiate much between categories of talent. There are no strategic underpinnings to support employers in the war for talent.

Take the H-1B program as an example.

The number of visas available — 85,000 — is an arbitrary number with no basis in demand. It has not been adjusted despite the fact that unemployment among high-tech workers is about 3% and there is no evidence whatsoever that skilled immigrant workers have any negative impact on the wages or the employment of domestic workers. Worse yet, H-1B visas are now allocated by lottery, i.e., at random. Need or the value of particular skills is not a factor.

Limited Options

There are some options available to employers frustrated with the situation. L-1 visas are one. These allow a company to transfer employees to the U.S. from their offices abroad for periods of up to five years. Employees must have worked for the company for at least one year before an L-1 can be issued. Unlike H-1Bs, there is no cap for L-1s.

Another option is the EB-5 program. Richard Herman of Herman Associates appraised me about this. Under EB-5, foreign investors can receive a green card if they invest at least $500,000 in a designated “investment center” and create 10 direct or indirect jobs, or $1 million outside the center. There are 10,000 green cards available under the EB-5 program, but only a small fraction get used; last year the program benefitted just 779 individuals. The program follows the lead of similar programs in Australia and Canada. That is why Microsoft has a development center in Vancouver that attracts a lot of talent.

Some communities are using the EB-5 program to create areas designed to attract immigrant talent —high-skill immigration zones. The Cleveland Council on World Affairs is leading a pilot initiative called the Talent Blueprint intended to bring together public and private entities to collaborate around the attraction of foreign talent and capital into Northeast Ohio. The region has over 10,000 openings for workers in fields related to bio-tech. Richard Herman and his associates are circulating among a large group of national thought and policy leaders the idea of Cleveland and other Rust Belt cities creating these zones to welcome both foreign talent and capital back to communities once known for their large immigrant populations that have now seen that high rate of immigrant influx migrate to places such as Atlanta, Silicon Valley, and Raleigh-Durham.

No Easy Solutions

The options described above are good ideas but they can have a small impact at best. The problem of talent shortages needs a comprehensive solution in terms of both domestic policy and immigration. But there is no one leading such an effort. Ideally there would be a cabinet-level position focused on talent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 1.64 million job openings for IT professionals between now and 2016. Yet, despite all the evidence that problems of supply are worsening, immigration policy for skilled talent remains entangled in political posturing and colored by issues of illegal immigration.

Organizations like FAIR and the self-styled Center for Immigration Studies, which make no differentiation between an agricultural worker and a software engineer, drum up wild theories about a gigantic conspiracy between employers to hire immigrant talent at-below market rates and deprive domestic workers of jobs. One of their more popular claims is that there is sufficient supply of domestic workers for high tech jobs. It’s difficult to square that with the fact that undergraduate enrollment in computer science programs has been in near free-fall since 2000, down by almost 50%. Another is that large numbers of H-1B visa holders become illegal aliens. But all that rhetoric does have some effect. When NAFTA was passed, the TN visa category was included only after the White House accepted demands that Mexican professionals not be given the same preferential treatment as Canadians. It took until 2004 to remove this bow to what some commentators described as the Titanic principle (first class gets better treatment than steerage).

The recruiting industry is not in a good position to influence this situation. The industry is not an organized lobby. No lobbying firm represents recruiting interests in Washington, while even North Korea and Ultimate Fighting are represented. Then again, it may not help much. Congress usually has matters of far greater national importance to deal with — such as investigating the New England Patriots for stealing their opponents’ signals, and the recently passed Primate Safety Act to ensure the proper treatment of monkeys.

New I-9 Form Released…

U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services just released its new version of the I-9 employment verification form, so make sure to update your records. (You can download it here; note that the new expiration date in the right-hand corner reflects 6/30/09.) You can move to an e-file for these forms, and perhaps you should: employeescreenIQ says its data shows that more than 85% of paper I-9 forms are filled out incorrectly. And electronically verifying this step is certainly a “greener” thing to do, and companies like Verified Person, Inc. agree. Its CEO, Jim Davis, says his Verified Person I-9 solution “affirms Verified Person’s belief in promoting an HR process that benefits the environment.”

From Resume Fluffing to Conviction Bluffing…

The folks at employeescreenIQ also say one of the hottest background-screening trends centers around the importance of thorough background checks in a shrinking job market. In fact, considering the state of the economy, “the job market is destined to become even more competitive, which in turn could lead some individuals to stretch the truth in order to secure employment,” according to the company’s new list of 10 background screening trends. Also, employeescreenIQ says conviction rates among job applicants are on the rise, and points to a 56% discrepancy rate between what is reported on a resume and what is found when conducting employment and education verifications.

TMI on MySpace?

Does the idea of lurking on someone’s MySpace page make you yell, “Too much information!” or do you view it as a (lurid) source of quality screening? What about reading someone’s biographical data on LinkedIn? Though stylistically very different (LinkedIn is more button-down; MySpace is more, er, unbuttoned?), these websites provide glimpses into the backgrounds of hopeful job candidates. Just remember two things if you decide to spend more time on these sites: failure-to-hire lawsuits can be a real headache, be it from MySpace, Google, or any other website, and avoid “friending” Natasha Kone on LinkedIn at all costs.

Genie on a Job Board…

In the June 26 issue of WEDDLE’s Newsletter, by industry analyst Peter Weddle, he advises that the key to using the Web for employers and job seekers is to manage your expectations.

“What’s out of whack is our perception of what the Internet can and cannot do,” he says. Though, “this technology is probably the single most effective means of connecting” employees and employers, it takes time to work. He advises job-seekers, in particular, that “The Internet is not some genie,” nor is it “a magic carpet that can carry you off to employment bliss the minute you hop on. No, the Web for all of its reach and technological power is bound by the pace of the humans who use it at the other end–the employers and recruiters who turn to the Web to find new talent.”

Government Security Clearance…

Weddle also reports that ClearanceJobs.com‘s recently released snapshot of security clearance salaries finds that those who have a security clearance earn 25% more than those who do not. This is not without hurdles, because “you have to be able to pass the intensive screening that’s involved in applying for a clearance, plus be in a job where a clearance is required for job performance. Even then, it may take a long time to acquire this advantage, as the backlog of Federal background investigations is already huge and growing,” says Weddle.

]]> http://www.ere.net/2008/06/26/the-new-i-9-form-and-other-screening-trends/feed/ 2 http://www.ere.net/2008/05/13/the-new-war-for-talent/ http://www.ere.net/2008/05/13/the-new-war-for-talent/#comments Mon, 12 May 2008 19:00:00 +0000 Raghav Singh http://www.ere.net/2008/05/13/the-new-war-for-talent/

We may be in the midst of a recession with increasing unemployment and fewer jobs, but that’s not likely to have much long-term effect on shortages of talent.

We’ve all read about the aging of the population and other demographic factors. The likely effect of these on availability of talent has been extensively written about. But the problems are likely to be worse than we realize because of three factors: liberalization of immigration policies in other countries; more restrictive immigration policies in the U.S.; and supply of talent.

Pick a Card, Any Card

The European Union has just green-lighted the Blue Card. Modeled on the Green Card, the Blue Card (the color of the EU’s flag) will allow skilled foreign workers to work and live, along with their families, anywhere in the EU’s 27 member states.

Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong have implemented similar programs, following the lead of Australia and New Zealand. The goals of all these programs are the same: to attract skilled talent and divert some of the talent that flows to the United States.

Currently, 85% of global unskilled labor goes to the European Union and only 5% to the United States. In contrast, 55% of qualified immigrants head for the United States and only 5% to Europe. With the Blue Card, the EU hopes to reduce the imbalance.

The EU and other countries may well succeed because their criteria for handing out permanent residency permits and work visas are much more liberal than those in the U.S., and the procedures will be simpler. Some allow employers to hand out residency permits along with offer letters.

In the EU, for jobs where a citizen is not available, an immigrant would only need to show a degree and three years of experience. Recognizing the need to attract young talent to Europe, immigrants under age 30 would have even easier requirements in qualifying for Blue Card status.

Setting Out the Unwelcome Mat

Our system of providing work visas and residency permits leaves much to be desired. It can take five to 10 years to get a Green Card and the system heavily favors family ties instead of skills. The process is byzantine, involving multiple government agencies and arcane procedures. The number of annual work visas is still only 85,000 despite clear evidence of a shortage of skilled workers. For example, the unemployment rate in computer- and mathematical-related occupations is about 2.1%, or full employment when allowing for people in transition between jobs. Incredibly, the number of visas was actually lowered from 195,000 in 2004, to a level that existed 15 years ago.

In testimony before Congress, Bill Gates had argued for elimination of the cap on H-1B visas. But in pandering to groups like FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) and other isolationists, the solons in Congress, in their infinite wisdom, have chosen to do little about the problem.

The problem is mostly political. Anti-immigrant groups are opposed to any loosening of immigration standards, though immigrant workers make up barely 3% of the skilled labor force and disproportionately contribute to the economy. A quarter of all Nobel prizes won by Americans have gone to immigrants, and a similar proportion of IT firms were started by Indians and Chinese.

A study by the National Foundation for American Policy found that the average S&P 500 company creates five new domestic jobs for each highly skilled H-1B visa employee it hires. By raising the H-1B cap, Congress would insource jobs, allowing companies to fill vital positions and expand their operations at home instead of moving overseas.

Reductions in Supply

Even if the number of work visas is increased, the supply of talent is already getting diverted from the United States. From 2001 to 2003, applications from foreign students to American universities dropped by 26% while they increased in the United Kingdom (36%), France (30%), and Australia (13%).

A 2005 study by the Pew Hispanic Center revealed that temporary legal visitors (the vast majority are skilled workers and university students) dropped to 185,000 in 2004 from 268,000 in 2000.

There’s also a major increase in departures among skilled workers returning to their homelands. A survey by Duke University found that one in three new immigrants holding high-tech jobs in the U.S. plan to leave. Between 10% to 50% of the R&D staff of Indian and Chinese high-tech firms are returnees. The reasons are not hard to discern; with comparable jobs available at home, workers have lesser incentives to tolerate the long waits and uncertainty in the United States.

What compounds the problem is that the supply of talent is simply not adequate to keep up with demand, here or anywhere. The U.S. produces the highest number of engineers per million residents of any country in the world, but that’s only about 137,000 engineers with bachelors’ degrees every year.

Supply from elsewhere is not sufficient to meet all the demand. In 2005, Fortune magazine estimated that China was producing some 600,000 engineers and India 350,000 annually.

These numbers have turned out to be a fantasy. A report by the McKinsey Global Institute said more than half of those “engineers” would be no more than technicians in the United States.

The actual numbers are more like 351,000 for China and 112,000 for India. And that’s not likely to increase much, as it takes decades for a top-flight academic institution to get established and start producing quality talent. The Indian Institutes of Technology, considered among the best in the world, can only produce 5,500 graduates every year, more than 50 years after its inception.

The Future

There are some glimmers of hope. Representatives Gabrielle Giffords (D?AZ) and Lamar Smith (R?TX) have introduced bills raising the cap for H-1B visas. These are the Strengthen United States Technology and Innovation Now (SUSTAIN) Act and the Innovation Employment Act.

The SUSTAIN Act would temporarily raise the cap to 195,000 for FY 2008 and FY 2009, while the Innovation Employment Act would initially raise the cap to 130,000 and allow the cap to increase the following year if it is reached.

Raising the cap is necessary, but more should be done to make H-1B visas flexible. Their number should reflect the economy’s need for high-tech workers, not arbitrary limits set by Congress.

In general, Congress’ record on improving the situation is not encouraging. The last attempt to reform immigration, the Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy (STRIVE) America Act, adopted the worst features of other countries’ immigration programs. It would have been better called the Stop Companies Recruiting Effective Workers (you can figure out the acronym for yourself) America Act. Thankfully, it did not pass.

But prospects for recruiting are not good. The EU hopes to attract 20 million skilled workers over the next two decades as a result of the Blue Card program. That may be overly optimistic but it will undoubtedly impact the flow of talent to the United States. How much is anyone’s guess.

Without drastic action, the gap between demand and supply will continue to widen. Recruiting will only get much, much harder. If there’s a bright side to this, it’s job security for recruiters.