Thread: Gates Warns On US Immigration Curbs

Gates warns on US immigration curbs
By Kevin Allison in San Francisco

Published: March 7 2007 19:26 | Last updated: March 7 2007 19:26

Bill Gates, the chairman of Micro*soft, on Wednesday warned that restrictions on the number of skilled workers allowed to enter the US put the country’s competitiveness at risk.

The comments marked the latest attack on restrictive US immigration policies by the technology industry, which is facing a shortage of skilled workers even as demand for their skills is increasing.

Speaking before the Senate committee on health, education, labour and pensions, Mr Gates said that tighter US immigration policies – governed partly by concerns over terrorism – were “driving away the world’s best and brightest precisely when we need them most”.

“It makes no sense to tell well-trained, highly skilled individuals, many of whom are educated at our top colleges and universities, that the United States does not welcome or value them,” Mr Gates said. “America will find it infinitely more difficult to maintain its technological leadership if it shuts out the very people who are most able to help us compete.”

Mr Gates said that other countries were taking advantage of restrictive US policies by catering to highly skilled workers who would otherwise choose to study, live and work in the US.

“Our lost opportunities are their gains,” he said. “I personally witness the ill effects of these policies on an almost daily basis at Microsoft.”

Mr Gates’s comments on immigration were part of a broader warning over the state of US competitiveness.

Mr Gates said he felt “deep anxiety” about the US’s ability to remain competitive if it did not act quickly to improve education, invest in basic science research, and reform its immigration *policies.

“America cannot maintain its innovation leadership if it does not educate world-class innovators and train its workforce to use innovations effectively. Unfort*unately, available data suggest that we are failing to do so . . . especially in our high schools.”

Mr Gates called on Congress to loosen rules that prevent many foreign students from settling once their studies in the US are complete. He also suggested that Congress speed the process of obtaining permanent resident status for highly skilled workers.

Immigration reform emerged as a key issue among voters in last year’s mid-term elections. However, most of the debate has focused on illegal immigration and whether the US should *create a guest worker programme for low-skilled immigrants.

The US currently limits visas for skilled foreign workers to 65,000 a year, while the number of green cards, required for permanent resident status is limited to 140,000 a year.

Mr Gates ack*now*ledged concerns over US job losses resulting from immigration but sought to distinguish between the need to encourage more highly skilled workers to enter the US and the broader debate on immigration reform.

“These reforms do not pit US workers against those foreign born,” he said. “Far from displacing US workers, highly skilled foreign-born workers will continue to function as they always have: as job creators.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007




http://www.ft.com/cms/s/473893dc-ccde-1 ... 10621.html

“These reforms do not pit US workers against those foreign born,” he said. “Far from displacing US workers, highly skilled foreign-born workers will continue to function as they always have: as job creators.”

Liar.

He's an elitist. As long as he has his cheap foreign labor, he feels his company can stay on top around the world. He has no worries about putting food on his table. I'm not sacrificing my American culture and nation for his bottom line!!!


Spend more on education is right but hire Americans first too!! No endless HB1visas!!!!!!!

Bill Gates has clearly gotten to Sen. Diane Feinstein, see S.B. 4 - Feinstein's amendment S.A. 271.

Phred, how is he a liar? Please explain. As Americans, being the biggest consumers of pretty much everything in the world, we demand a commodity. If this commodity is not available, more business, to obviously gain business from the sector demanding the service, will create [here's where "job creators" comes in] the necessary projects or components that the service entails.


Anyone can create anything they want. Our greatest inventors were people that came out of obscurity with their inventions [Alexander Graham Bell, Albert Einstein].


ALIPAC, I have a problem with the message this organization is making. I joined because, like every single one of you, I am sick and tired of the illegals running over our country. I'm tired of the bankrupt hospitals, I am tired of the disorder and ultimate chaos that is inhabiting our nation. I am, however, always open to legal immigrants. Respect breeds respect, my father would always tell me. You respect my laws, I shall respect you.


An increase in LEGAL immigration is not such a horrible thing. It is not the end of the world. I can personally attest to what Gates said in the Senate committee meeting. Having just gone through college, I witnessed many students changing their science/engineering majors to liberal arts majors. The secondary education in this country is horrible to say the least. I went on a study-aboard trip to Peru and, my, I will tell you, their math and science skills are better than ours ten-fold. Is it that horrendous to include more skilled immigrants into our nation? What do we have to lose?


Studies have shown that the countries that we take our skilled workers from suffer greater than we do [the "brain drain" phenomenon]. This is bad for them, incredible for us. I am right now an engineering intern in a large American firm and, trust me, we are practically begging colleges around the nation to try and have more tutors or more resources so that they can graduate engineers and not lose them because of improper and even hostile educational environments.


No, I do not work for Microsoft or any Bill Gates' owned subsidiaries, so I have no real reason to be "justifying their agenda", whatever that may be. All I am saying that maybe ALIPAC should change its name if it wants to be an immigration restrictionist. The people here at ALIPAC give the improper representation of what they believe in: if you believe in legal immigration, then you should be ready to take a NEEDED increase in skilled worker immigrant visas. If you don't you are an immigration restrictionist that doesn't seem to understand the need that is being created due to insufficient engineers or scientists graduating from American universities.


Less than 30% of Americans are degree-holders. Less than half of them hold degrees in math and science. Gates is right; unless we increase skilled worker visas, this country will no longer be the forerunner in the technological field. And that, my fellow Americans, is dastardly to our image and morale.

CCUSA,


Americans, for the most part, are hired first. We just CAN'T FIND ANY. I have gone from university to university, coast to coast, pouncing on every student leaving an engineering or science building. Virtually all of them tell me, "This is my last year as a __________major. Following this semester, I'm a liberal arts major". I'm not saying that's bad; my own fiance was a liberal arts [Sociology] major in college. What I am talking about is the severe shortage of engineering/science/math[ESM] majors there are in this country.


We need to strengthen our educational system. But, at the same time, we cannot choose majors for our young students. They will follow their hearts and pick a major suited for them. As long as we need more people from the ESM majors, we need to find a way to fill job vacancies in these sectors and we need to find that solution quick.

Bill Gates, the chairman of Micro*soft, on Wednesday warned that restrictions on the number of skilled workers allowed to enter the US put the country’s competitiveness at risk.

Please Bill spare us your warnings!! Were sick of big business warning us about everything that is hurting citizens. We know exactly what is going on here!

iamtired, you are not looking in the right place or are not offering salary. There are many people who need jobs and have the background. Some of them will be bad but more will work. Go to job fairs, etc. They are there.

iamtired:

Here is the (unfortunate) milk-carton poster person of victims of H1B job-shifting - which supports the contention:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ke ... gle+Search


Most, if not all, your concerns have been touched upon in a recent but highly related thread here:

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=56511


To summarize the basic points:

Sometimes the work visa programs are used as they were designed to be, which is fine - I have no problem with that. All too often though, they have become magnets for nefarious activity. The type of activity which frequently, has as it's underlying goal, the undermining of the standard of living of the US tech worker or wholesale displacement of the same.

Q. If the need for tech workers so great, and the supply so short - why has the average salary DROPPED in the last 5 years then? Such a scenario would seem to buck the most fundamental of economic principles or 'laws'.

I have gone from university to university, coast to coast, pouncing on every student leaving an engineering or science building. Virtually all of them tell me, "This is my last year as a __________major. Following this semester, I'm a liberal arts major". I'm not saying that's bad; my own fiance was a liberal arts [Sociology] major in college. What I am talking about is the severe shortage of engineering/science/math[ESM] majors there are in...

.
Why are you only looking for 'fresh meat' right out of [undergraduate] school? There are lots of more experienced people looking (check the IEEE stats). Actually, some of the best developers/programmer I know AREN'T CS/Engineering majors. Maybe you need to revise your search strategy.

Sorry, no takers to your logic here.

PhredE:


We look for "Fresh Meat" because it is beneficial to our company to hire kids straight out of college, where they can learn from our more experienced workers and be more productive. As the adage goes "You can't teach an old dog new tricks". We have tried to look for more experienced engineers as well as needed; apparently, they were either a) fired from their previous job for reasons that we cannot in good faith hire them from, or b) not interested in working as much as we make younger, fresh students work. Productivity is the key and it is a given that if you train a young person correctly, they will produce at much more rapid rates as older engineers and are used to the newer technology available to engineers since they themselves were trained to use it in school. I personally believe our strategy is the right one and we aren't looking to change it anytime soon.


Beckyal:


I have gone from job fair to job fair. Yes, we have gotten many wonderful recruits; however, the others are, for lack of a better word, incompetent in comparison to the few H1B workers we have and even in comparison to their American peers. The problem is, the education here stinks. My firm has been to over 350 college job fairs. Our starting salary for an engineering intern is $38,000. While this is relatively low in certain areas, if we are recruiting them from out of state, we will personally pay for their moving costs, cover up to two weeks of temporary housing or rental cars, and set them up with our own realtors for apartments or houses at modest prices.


In addition, we guarantee at least a $1000 Christmas bonus and the requisite health care and dental benefits. This is in addition to a two week paid vacation, 10 paid sick days limit, and pay raises that are given based on productivity rates. [For example, if by the end of six months an intern has successfully managed projects and/or worked on new "innovation focus groups" that are used mainly to find new efficient ways of handling project work sites or new strategies in the design of certain facilities, they will be eligible for up to $3,000 a year in raises, according to their performance].


If this isn't enough to turn someone on to becoming an engineer, tell us what we're missing. We cannot accept mediocre applicants or we risk losing millions of dollars in lawsuits and even worse, endanger lives. Engineering is one of those "exact" sciences. If you screw up one TINY thing, the entire building or machine will be useless and can possibly kill hundreds, thousands, millions of people.