Tech firms invent shortage panic

By Walt Gardner

It’s become the mantra of critics that public schools are not turning out enough qualified math and science graduates to meet the needs of companies in this country.

We’ve all read the stories and seen the news reports that China and India are graduating four times as many engineers as the United States and that shortage is growing dire.

But repeating something often enough does not make it true.

This year, nearly six months after the government began accepting applications for what has always been the coveted H-1B visa for qualified high-tech workers, only 46,700 petitions have been filed.

This compares with the 65,000 visas that were snapped up in just one day last year when the window opened.

The H-1B is a visa that enables employers to employ foreign workers for stipulated periods of time in speciality occupations, such as math and science.

The shrinkage is partly the result of the recession, but it’s also due to the stimulus package that requires all companies receiving bailout funds to show they are not displacing an American worker for a foreigner with an H-1B visa.

But what’s overlooked is that regardless of economic conditions, companies continue to insist they need to recruit abroad because of the shortage of science, technology, engineering and math graduates produced by schools here.

Their claim doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

The latest evidence comes from a study released last month titled “Steady as She Goes? Three Generations of Students Through the Science and Engineering Pipeline.” Investigators B. Lindsay Lowell of Georgetown University and Harold Salzman of Rutgers University found that the flow of math and science students is strong — except among high achievers, who are defecting to other majors and fields.

In 2007, the same researchers reported in “Into the Eye of the Storm” that about three STEM graduates exist for every new STEM position, not counting openings caused by retirements.

They also found that two years after graduation, 20 percent of STEM bachelor degree holders were still in school — but not in STEM fields.

Moreover, 45 percent of STEM graduates who were in the workplace were not in STEM jobs.

They concluded that the educational system is producing a supply of qualified STEM graduates far in excess of demand.

Two years ago this month, several experts testified before the House Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation to support this view.

Michael Teitelbaum, vice president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which has long devoted substantial funding to improving science, engineering and economic performance, presented data that refuted the bleak outlook.

He cited several RAND Corp. studies that found an overall surplus — not shortage.

“These findings of no general shortage are entirely consistent with isolated shortages of skilled people in narrow fields or in specific technologies that are quite new or growing explosively,” he said.

In his testimony, Teitelbaum charged that the conventional portrait of STEM shortages was “simply the expressions of interests by interest groups and their lobbyists.”

If this data were not enough to contradict the assertions made by high tech companies, the Wall Street Journal published a series of letters last year from experienced STEM professionals in New York, Colorado and Florida who were unable to find work in their field at wages commensurate with their backgrounds.

All called into question the need for H-1B visas in light of the reality of the market for their services.

Their plight was echoed by their counterparts in Philadelphia, Seattle, Boston and San Jose’s Silicon Valley.

Against this backdrop, it’s hard to believe the alarmist claims made by high-tech companies about STEM workers.

What is more likely is that their complaints reveal their desire to pay H-1B workers below-market wages, which in turn drags down wages for their American counterparts.

That’s why companies clamor for the issuance of more H-1B visas under the guise of not being able to find sufficient qualified STEM employees.

Government data show that Indian outsourcing companies, for example, account for nearly 80 percent of the visa petitions approved last year for the top 10 participants in the program.

These companies allow low-level tech workers from other countries to train in the United States for salaries far below what Americans with similar backgrounds can live on, and then return home.

It’s time to acknowledge that careers in STEM have acquired a cachet in the minds of the American public that doesn’t jibe with reality.

When compensation in these fields is declining, along with benefits and security, bright students understandably look elsewhere for their future.

Companies then use the predictable data to create a doomsday scenario to justify expanding the number of H-1B visas.

It’s a vicious circle.

Portraying the issue anyway else is a red herring.