US bill signals shortage of skilled labour

It took the passage of a bill in the US Congress last week to underline just how much the technology environment has changed over the past few years in the Republic. The federal bill, known as HR 3736, heavily lobbied for by the technology industry, proposed to increase the number of temporary H-1B work visas for skilled workers by 115,000 over three years. The bill came primarily in response to demands from technology companies that the US government allow them to address a shortage of suitably-skilled employees by bringing in more non-Americans.

The Irish, perhaps more than any other national group, have always worked diligently to create immigration opportunities for Irish people to the US - most memorably, by gaining the lion's share of visas in the Donnelly and Morrison visa programmes. But, according to the Irish consul general in San Francisco, Mr Kevin Conmy, the Irish Government, via the Irish Embassy, did not lobby for the H-1B bill. "There was no particular Irish angle on this one," he said.

The Republic now has its own technology industry with a voracious appetite for skilled workers, particularly the graduate engineers and computer scientists Silicon Valley would most like to entice away. Already faced with concerns from the Republic's technology employers that the State will face an increasing tech skills shortage, the Government does not seem to have been particularly eager to encourage the existing employee pool to depart for the California sun. Indeed, the Government has two formal programmes in place to encourage Irish technology graduates to return to the Republic. Conversely, had the Government lobbied against the bill, it might have been perceived as an acknowledgment of a skills shortage within the Republic, and an attempt to dam an outward flow of workers. And no one, apparently, wants to give that impression to any US technology companies considering a move to the Republic. So, says Mr Conmy, "an Irish profile on this bill wouldn't have served anything except to focus on Ireland's success in this area. Further attention wouldn't have accomplished anything and may indeed have been counterproductive".

He believes that most people who wish to work in Silicon Valley have other options than the temporary, six-year visas offered by the bill. They can apply to work for US companies in the Republic, which often will send Irish employees to Silicon Valley for training or longer-term placement. Or, they can apply for jobs with Irish firms which, increasingly, are opting for a Silicon Valley office.

But the bill, which became a bitter contest over immigration laws and technology industry attitudes towards the labour market, may have a wider relevance for the Republic. The State's technology industry is already asking for a more relaxed policy towards bringing in foreign skilled labour. And, as the industry matures, today's young Irish technology graduates should perhaps be concerned about tomorrow's career.

"First and foremost, what we're starting to see is engineers 40 and older having a harder time getting interviewed and getting pushed out," says Mr Paul Kostek, a systems engineering consultant in Seattle and president-elect of the largest American engineers public policy organisation, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Mr Kostek's group was one of the most vocal opponents of the H-1B bill, claiming the technology industry was seeking to hire cheap, foreign, temporary labour by overstating the skills shortage, rather than hiring or retraining older - and therefore, more experienced and more costly - engineers. Mr Kostek acknowledges this position was publicly perceived as an anti-immigration stance.

On the other hand, Mr Conmy says the Silicon Valley technology industry was naive in not realising the H-1B issue would become enmeshed in thorny national immigration debates. "They thought that what was self-evident to them [the labour shortage] could cut through all the deepest, darkest issues on immigration," he says. "But they found they were staring right into Washington and federal politics on the immigration issue." Immigration and race issues became major flashpoints in arguments over the bill. But Mr Kostek says IEEE-USA's major concern has not been race, but age, in an industry which defines "old" as 35. Mr Kostek says this is a phenomenon restricted to the computer software and hardware industries.

Technology companies have admitted that they prefer younger engineers because they have training in the most recent technologies and can be put straight to work on products within their hyper-accelerated industry. With short product cycles, companies don't have time to retrain older engineers, they say.

Following the bill's overwhelming passage in the House, and likely sprint through the Senate before getting the President's OK, Mr Kostek says he's ready to continue the fight, on new ground. "We see it as an opportunity to force a dialogue," he says. First, to demand "a solid immigration policy". And second: "It's a chance to ask the industry why they seem to think that engineers and computer scientists over the age of 35 or 40 are no longer viable."

Karlin Lillington is at karlin@indigo.ie