A friend of mine and I have debated about companies using H1B visas to get skilled technical people into the US.

Stardock uses H1B visas a lot.  But only 65,000 of them are given out by the US government.  Politicians, who typically have no understanding of business, think that these tight limits will encourage companies to look harder for Americans to fill positions.  That's incredibly naive.  The reality is that companies who find talented people overseas that they can't bring over just open up foreign offices which in turn end up depriving Americans of jobs because of infrastructure that ends up being built to support engineers working in other countries.

Today's Wallstreet Journal talks about this issue and gives a generally even-handed (though not very well researched IMO) treatment of the issue.  On the one hand, the # of engineers graduating has gone up -- same for CS majors.  But by a pretty paltry amount (~11,000 more engineers graduated last year compared to 1999, w00t). 

American politicians want to have it both ways too -- they embrace the global economy when it comes to goods and services but demand companies ignore the global economy when it comes to labor and expertise.  At Stardock, we're pretty much always hiring all-year round at this point.  Web developers, engineers, software developers, 3D modelers, artists, sales engineers, etc.  And what I can tell you is that the # of qualified people who are willing to relocate to this part of the country (Michigan) is not high.

Qualified is subjective so let me give you an example. This week we're looking for web developers.  We've been interviewing for months.  The technology today in these areas requires (for us) them to have ASP.NET, C#, and VB.NET experience.  Our sites use this stuff.  We pay competitively with other companies so price isn't so much the issue as opposed to finding people who meet our requirements.

In the WSJ article, "Companies are looking for a five-pound butterfly. Not finding them doesn't mean there's a shortage of butterflies," says Richard Tax, president of the American Engineering Association, which campaigns to prevent losses of engineering jobs."

To which I say: Oh boo-hoo.  I'm sorry but let's say I'm trying to find someone to mow the lawn. If one requirement is that they be able to mow it in less than 2 hours am I asking too much simply because the candidates who apply only know how to use scissors and are unfamiliar with "lawn mowers"?

Again: It's a global economy.  To compete, I need guys who know ASP, VB.NET, etc.  That's life. If the government wants to shut out foreign competition on goods and services and consumers want to pay more, then hey, knock themselves out.  But obviously no one wants that.  And the fact is, if I want, I an get people -- lots of people -- overseas who know this stuff within the industry norm salary requirement.  So at some point in the hiring process, we start looking at overseas and trying to get them a visa.  If we can't get them the visa, then it's just overseas entirely.  And so hundreds of thousands of dollars end up being sent overseas now to pay people who we wouldn't be able to get a visa for due to qualifications or because of the 65,000 yearly limit on visas issued. 

The WSJ article contends that there's lots of American engineers and technical people who have been out of work for a long while looking for jobs.  Yep and I've met some of these guys during interviews.  Here's the deal: If you choose to be an engineer or other technical profession, then it's your responsibility to keep up with the latest technology in your field.  Don't come applying to a software company demanding $80k per year if you only know some ancient web development technology or have only recently starting "toying around with" C++ (C++ is a given, do you know C#?).  The further behind in tech you get, the fewer job opportunities you'll have.

Of course, even on this point the WSJ article wants to have it both ways.  They contend that the unemployment rate for engineers is only 2.5%.  So it does lend credence of the difficulty in finding engineers and other technical professionals.

The bottom line is that the US economy is moving to an technology based economy.  Manufacturing jobs are moving overseas and if the we want to maintain our lead in technological production, we need to encourage more people to become engineers, computer scientists, and other technical professions.  And we need those people to put more effort into keeping up with the latest trends in their fields -- not just when they graduate but for their entire careers. 

In addition, the US government should hand out visas like candy in technical fields. Technical jobs are even easier to outsource than manufacturing jobs.  Don't put companies in the position of having to go without a job (or hire an overpaid, under qualified local for the position) and having to simply employ the talented overseas engineer because the latter will nearly always be the decision.