WASHINGTON, March 30: Facing another squeeze on a visa programme for skilled workers, US business leaders are stepping up efforts to raise the limits, arguing that the nation is running short of the talent it needs to remain competitive.

A broad coalition of businesses, especially in the tech sector, are warning that the quota of 65,000 for the so-called H-1B visa programme on April 1, is likely to be filled the first day submissions are accepted for the fiscal year starting Oct 1.

If that occurs, employers seeking to hire skilled foreigners will have to wait for next year’s application to hire people in October 2009.

It would be the second year in a row that the limit will exhaust on the first day, and will prompt the US Citizenship and Immigration Services agency to resort again to a “lottery” to award these visas.

Robert Hoffman, vice president at software giant Oracle and head of the Compete America coalition, said the squeeze on these visas is hurting the ability of American companies to compete in the global marketplace.

“This is an arbitrary and outdated cap set in 1990,” Hoffman told a gathering of business leaders and journalists in Washington this past week.

“For the second consecutive year, US companies and research institutions will be forced to put plans on hold as they wait for a random lottery to determine who gets to hire the scientists and engineers they need. It’s no way to run a business, or a visa programme.” Hoffman said a recent survey showed some 140,000 job openings for skilled positions among the Standard & Poor’s 500 companies, the largest firms in the United States.

“It’s not just a tech problem or an aerospace problem, it’s a national problem,” he said.

Other business leaders have blamed the cap and a backlog in other programmes for permanent US residency for a shortage of computer scientists, engineers and other professionals, and argue that the inability to fill the jobs forces companies to outsource work overseas.

Yet lawmakers have been cool to increasing the quotas for H-1B visas at a time of rising unemployment.

Critics of the programme argue that loopholes are being exploited by overseas firms, which send their nationals to the US at low wages and deprive Americans of employment.

Data released by the government showed many of the biggest users of the programme are technology firms located in India.

Ron Hira, a Rochester Institute of Technology professor who has been a harsh critic of the H-1B programme, argues that it is abused by offshore firms that “recycle” workers to give them training in the US before outsourcing the work.

“The programme does not require companies to look for Americans first,” he said.

“Some people claim they want to bring in the ‘best and brightest’ but they bring in cheap labour, and it undercuts US workers’ bargaining power and puts US companies that hire Americans at a competitive disadvantage.” Despite shortcomings in the programme, some analysts argue the US is in danger of losing its competitive edge if it fails to take steps to attract and retain top professionals, many of whom come to the United States to study.

“America rose to economic prominence on the shoulders of the mostly highly skilled workforce in the world. However, during the last 30 years, skill levels in the US workforce have stagnated,” says a report by Jacob Kierkegaard, a Danish H-1B visa holder and researcher at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“For America to regain its leadership in global talent, it must urgently reform its high-skilled immigration.” Launched in 1990, the H-1B visa programme allows foreign scientists, engineers and technologists to be employed for up to six years, at the end of which they must obtain a permanent residency or return home. A large number come from Asia, especially India.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told Congress recently that US high-tech firms are forced to outsource jobs overseas because of immigration restrictions.

Gates argued that for each person hired on an H-1B visa, four additional employees are hired in the US in support positions.

Both supporters and critics of the programme however agree that the prospect of a lottery for skilled workers is a flawed way to allocate the visas.

“Companies don’t want to play the lottery. They want to figure out how to invest their resources,” said Angelo Amador of the US Chamber of Commerce.

Kim Berry of the Programmers Guild, an association of IT professionals who claims US workers are hurt by the visa programme, says it can be fixed with an alternative to the lottery.“The guild advocates that priority be given to higher skilled H-1B candidates, and that US employers be given preference over foreign consulting firms,” Berry said.

“These simple changes would provide a means for Microsoft and other US employers to have every H-1B that they submit on April 1, 2008 approved.”—AFP