Thread: Alarm Rises Over European Bid To Woo Educated U.S. Workers

October 29, 2007


Alarm Rises Over European Bid To Woo Educated U.S. Workers

BY NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT - Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 29, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/65425

American companies are becoming increasingly alarmed at a European initiative designed to attract the world's best-educated workers with a speedy and relaxed work permit system.

The proposed European Union "blue card" is designed to woo highly skilled workers from outside Europe, including America, to take jobs with European companies. American businesses, especially those in medicine and high technology, already face a shortage of suitably educated labor and say the restrictive and slow American "green card" system will be no match for the new European card, leading to the world's best brains decamping to Europe.

Although the European measure is intended primarily to attract well-educated immigrants from Russia, China, and India, some American companies say the lure of living in Europe will also encourage many skilled young Americans, and foreigners trained at American expense at American colleges, to emigrate.

"The E.U. is saying, 'We're coming for your students. We know the U.S. produces the best math and science students coming out of college and we're going to come get them,'" the vice president of government and public affairs at the software company Oracle, Robert Hoffman said in a statement.

"Europe has sent a message. They are aggressively pursuing the professional talent they need to compete on the global stage," he said.

While the Republican presidential candidates are focused on how to reduce the number of illegal low-skilled immigrants, America's need to find from abroad the highly skilled labor it cannot meet from its own population is not yet an issue in the 2008 race.

Nor is Congress addressing the issue. Last week, the Senate approved a measure that will make the hiring of skilled foreign workers more expensive, by hiking the price of temporary H–1B visas to $5,000 a person from $1,500.

"Cutting-edge U.S.companies depend on specialized talent coming out of U.S. graduate schools. These scientists and engineers are often foreign-born, as more than half of U.S. engineering master's and Ph.D. recipients are international students," said Mr. Hoffman, who is also co-chairman of Compete America, a lobbying group representing technology companies that have been urging Congress to increase the quota of H–1B visas, currently fixed at 85,000 a year, and make green cards easier to obtain.

"H–1B visa numbers are already completely inadequate. Raising further roadblocks for U.S. employers trying to hire top talent is shortsighted and anticompetitive," he said.

The Oracle executive was joined by Ralph Hellman, a lobbyist for the Information Technology Industry Council, whose members include Microsoft, IBM, Dell, Apple, Cisco Systems, and Intel.

"Europe has laid down a challenge to the United States Congress. The E.U. will attract the best and brightest workers in the world if the United States continues to create new burdens to hiring these valuable workers," Mr. Hellman said in a statement.

If America fails to counter the European measure, American high-tech companies will be obliged to outsource skilled jobs, Mr. Hoffman said. Oracle already employs 20% of its research and development staff abroad, and that number is sure to rise unless reforms are made.

"If the U.S. immigration policy continues on this path, what choice do we have?" Mr. Hoffman asked. Foreigners make up more than 40% of scientists and engineers graduating with a Ph.D., half of those with doctoral computer science and math degrees, 56% of computer science doctorates, and 65% of those with doctorates in engineering, according to 2005 figures provided by the National Science Foundation.

The European blue card system is due to come into operation in 2009 and will be accompanied by a global advertising campaign financed by the European Union to attract qualified immigrants. A blue card will be considerably easier to obtain than an American green card.

Those applying for a blue card must have a one-year employment contract with a salary of three times the E.U. minimum wage. The card, which would be issued within three months of the application, would allow the applicant and his or her family to live and work in Europe for two years, and would allow a grace period to find similar high skilled employment when the contract ends. After five years blue card holders would be entitled to become permanent E.U. residents.

The green card offers immediate permanent residency and American citizenship after five years. However, green cards are expensive to apply for, are severely restricted in numbers, and can take years to be approved.

The architect of the blue card proposals is the E.U. justice commissioner, Franco Frattini. "Europe is an immigration continent," he said in a recent speech. "We are attractive to many. But we are not good enough at attracting highly skilled people. Nor are we young or numerous enough to keep the wheels of our societies and economies turning on our own."

Mr. Frattini said he wants to change the trend whereby 55% of highly qualified migrants apply to work in America and only 5% head for Europe. If the blue card scheme is adopted, the European Union expects to attract 20 million workers from outside Europe over the next 20 years.

http://www.nysun.com/article/65425

This is just more propaganda from big business to push their agenda for more foreign worker visas (cheaper labor).