<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER  No. 1813 -- 1/28/2008 >>>>>

The Software & Information Industry Association acknowledged that it's not
easy to lobby Congress to increase the number of H-1B visas at a time when
the economy is crashing and unemployment is increasing, but they are doing
it anyway. Their argument is that unlike all other job markets in the U.S.
the software industry is unique because it will have shortages of qualified
Americans from now until eternity.

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http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&arti
cleId=9058941

Software group says that without more foreign workers in U.S., jobs may go
overseas
Patrick Thibodeau
January 24, 2008 (Computerworld) The U.S. software industry is larger than
the food processing industry in terms of revenue, according to an IT trade
group that wants Congress to raise the annual cap on H-1B visas, give
permanent residency to foreign nationals who graduate from U.S. colleges
and back trade policies that give companies unfettered access to global
markets.

The Software & Information Industry Association today released a report
(download PDF) that assembles a variety of economic data in an effort to
give policy-makers a better understanding of the software industry's
importance to the U.S. economy. For instance, the SIIA said that software
vendors and digital content providers employed a combined total of 2.7
million people in 2006, a net gain of more than 400,000 jobs over the 1997
level. That's a 17% increase in head count, the group said.

SIIA president Ken Wasch acknowledged that the timing of the report's
release was a little awkward, coming during a time when the stock market is
falling, interest rates are being cut and Congress is working to craft an
economic stimulus bill.

"Our industry is not going to be able to repeal the economic business
cycle," Wasch said. If the U.S. economy goes into a recession, he added,
"our industry will be impacted as well."

But Wasch claimed that the software industry has outpaced other economic
sectors and the economy as a whole on growth over the past few years. "In
an economic downturn, surely it's not going to be good news for our
industry," he said. "But our industry ought to be performing better than
industries that are fading in economic importance."

Nonetheless, Wasch contended that maintaining the industry's current level
of growth in the U.S. will require immigration reform. Without the ability
to add talented workers as needed, "we're creating an incentive for the
industry to create knowledge centers outside the United States," he said.

The average annual wage paid in the software industry during 2006 was
$75,400, according to the SIIA, which said that figure is about 78% higher
than the median wage for all workers in the private sector.

The numbers cited by the SIIA are largely based on statistics from
government reports and, consequently, tend to be one or two years old. But
the intent of such reports from trade groups often is to add weight to
their congressional policy initiatives.

For instance, the SIIA is calling for improvements to science, math and
technology training overall in U.S. schools. That is a common argument made
by tech industry groups, which also cite a shortage of skilled talent in
the U.S. and the need to bring in qualified workers from overseas. Wasch
said he thinks permanent-residency green cards should be "stapled" to the
diplomas of U.S. college graduates from foreign countries.

But on the issue of math and science training, the Urban Institute, a
nonpartisan policy research and analysis group in Washington, concluded in
a report released in November that "the U.S. is not at any particular
disadvantage compared with most nations, and the supply of qualified
[science and engineering] graduates is large and ranks among the best
internationally."

Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester
Institute of Technology in New York, called the SIIA's report "a defensive
document" in an e-mail response to questions about it.

Hira said he thinks that a better comparison than measuring the U.S.
software industry against other sectors is to look at the growth rates of
the large offshore outsourcing companies vs. the growth of software jobs in
the U.S. "I think everyone will be taken aback," he wrote. "The growth of
IT labor demand in the U.S. is a pittance compared to the explosive growth
in India."

Another policy issue of importance to the SIIA is trade barriers. Wasch
said that the European Union and countries in other regions are placing
what amounts to a "patchwork quilt" of restrictions that impede the flow of
data -- for instance, limiting the ability of companies to store
information about overseas customers on systems in the U.S. The trade group
would like to see some standardization of such restrictions, he added.

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