The STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Jobs act, H.R. 6429 was introduced in the House by Rep. Lamar Smith on September 28, 2012 and passed on 11/30 in the house 245 to 139. Iowa Representatives Braley and Loebsack voted No while King, Latham and Boswell voted in favor. The bill was referred to the Senate and was read on 12/3 and 12/4/2012. I spoke with Jens Krogstad of the Des Moines Register on this topic recently, and read the article and accompanying citizen commentary today. I am disappointed in the direction the article took, as it focused on an individual’s plight instead of the larger problem surrounding the STEM worker shortage.
As the Governor and Lt. Governor of Iowa have outlined via their multi-year, statewide STEM initiative, there is a need for this state to grow the population able to fill open STEM jobs. A University of Iowa survey in 2012 documented that 61% of Iowans agree that there aren’t enough skilled workers to fill STEM jobs in Iowa (slide 14 of the UNI Study). The Iowa Workforce development projects the need for STEM qualified workforce to grow from 57,830 in 2008 to 67,330 jobs by 2018, especially in the priority economic sectors of bio-science, information technology, and advanced manufacturing. These industries are prominently represented by employers large and small – names like DuPont/Pioneer, Monsanto, Rockwell Collins, Vermeer, Pella, and others in all corners of the state.
Our pipeline of homegrown talent, however, is leaking. Our 8th graders, at the top in 1992 nationally, have fallen to 25th in Math and 13th in Science. Only 51% of Iowa ACT test takers in 2010 were college math-ready, and only 11% of them were actually interested in a STEM major. To top off the data, 93% of Iowa’s population growth comes from Latino/Asian/African-american populations who are half as likely to pursue a career in STEM fields than their white counterparts.
So couple the increasing need for workers in our STEM industries (from ~58000 to ~67000) with a decreasing population of potential homegrown STEM workers (STEM-interested high school graduates now at about 4000) , and we have a deficit. Since it takes at least 22 years to take a newborn through college, and our STEM agenda is working hard to grow the number from K-16 within the 22 year constraint), our deficit will naturally grow over time until we fix our production problem. The choice is to export the jobs or import the people.
Importing individuals may sound petty and trite, but economically it is a choice. Without the oceans, mountains, temperate climate, and activities, we know that our government officials’ desire to import new Iowa citizens from the coasts will be minimally fruitful. So, why not figure out a way to keep talented, STEM-ready, young people here? BTW, this problem isn’t localized to Iowa – Brad Feld has shared his frustrations via his posts, Vivek Wadhwa through his book, the Immigrant Exodus, and numerous others, our industry titans are hurting for qualified individuals and unable to find them.
That’s what the STEM Jobs Act is designed to do. The democrat representatives and President I voted for killed that movement to protect a silly diversity lottery. A lottery that brings people with no eye for what they bring to the country. More partisan politics that bears little benefit for the country’s citizens. There is a chance I might get to discuss this with the President himself in a few weeks. Hopefully I can deliver the message more concisely for political consumption by then.
Please hit your employees in DC to tell them we need the STEM Jobs act. Here are the links –
Bruce – http://braley.house.gov/contact
Dave – https://loebsack.house.gov/contactform/default.aspx
Barack – http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
–Tej
Tag: immigration
Immigration issues – revisited in DC
There is an eerie consensus across the aisle in DC that our current immigration system is broken, in need of reform, and change is necessary for the long term economic growth. There is little consensus on how such reform will be achieved, who will lead it, and what will eventually motivate Congress into action.
Human Capital, impacted by immigration, was one of the core topics of the Des Moines Partnership’s DC trip this spring and I am privileged in being able to join business and government leaders from our region on this trip. I am certainly privileged to work with Lori Chesser from the Davis Brown Law firm and invited to a panel on immigration.
The panel, consisting of Rosemary Gutierrez and David Johns from Sen Harkin’s office, Kathy Neubel Kovarik from Sen Grassley’s office, Aaron Brickman from Department of Commerce, Ben Johnson from American Immigration Council, and moderated by Lori Chesser was attended by various members of the Des Moines community and focused significantly on answering questions from the audience and thus remaining very interactive.
There are three forms of legal immigration today – 1) marriage to a US citizen, 2) sponsorship by an employer, or 3) sponsorship by an American citizen family member. Being involved in all three forms, I felt comfortable contributing my experience and need for policy changes and bills currently circulating in DC. I am married to a natural born US citizen from Iowa, have sponsored, on my previous company’s behalf, several H1b candidates from India, Nepal, Indonesia and Vietnam, many of who are taxpaying residents, green card holders, naturalized citizens and contributors to Iowa and the US economy. I am also sponsoring my sister, a Malaysian citizen to the US.
What is broken and in need of fix are the second and third categories. Whether it is the HR3012 bill that allows green cards to be issued from the available pool rather than be artificially limited, the proposed StartupVisa that allows for foreign entrepreneurs to start their businesses in the US when sponsored by an accredited US investor, the DREAM act or others, several solutions exist and are available to Congress.
What I heard from many during this recent visit to DC was that many in Congress would rather wait for a comprehensive immigration reform. Both Senators’ offices comments were consistent that they prefer comprehensive reform such that visas should not take jobs from US workers, college seats from native US students, be considered comprehensively and not piecemeal etc.
Though a desire for comprehensive reform is respectable, Congress hasn’t shown an ability to work together toward real reform in my voting life in the US. Furthermore, careers in STEM fields continue to be underfilled by software developers, doctors and engineers. Companies large and small, represented in the audience for our forum, continue needing to offshore their work in absence of sufficient resources here.
As Jim Clifton so clearly pointed out in Coming Jobs War, there is a marked change underway worldwide. Qualified technology workers are finding an ability to find careers overseas and no longer want to stand in line as second-class citizens in the US. Recent news reports are listed net-immigration from Mexico even to be zero, resulting in shifts even in the agricultural economies of Texas, Florida and California. People are finding opportunities elsewhere in the world, and if we are unable or unwilling to bring job-seekers here, our companies will be sending the jobs overseas.
My message to the congressional representatives and other members on the panel was clear –
- We can’t wait for comprehensive reform. To stem the outflow of jobs, we must tweak our immigration policy through bills like the HR3012 that received significant support in the house (373-15) but remain stuck in the Senate.
- Small and new businesses are the job creators. Startups, a subset of the new businesses, are the high growth leaders in wealth creation that leads to more job creators. The StartupVisa, as introduced by Kerry and Luger in 2011 needs to be addressed in Congress.
- Our colleges and universities are global leaders in education and attract students from around the world. As we graduate them and give them options to intern/train via OPT/CPT statutes, we should allow them the ability to apply for a green card and legal employment at the end of the practical training rather than subject them to 3-10 years of servitude via the H1b program. These students represent a large community of individuals who are establishing strong ties to America – we need to grow through them.
- Our schools and colleges are not graduating needed numbers of STEM fields. While we build that population up through K-12 systems over the next 20-30 years, we should make our universities and colleges attractive globally through a foreign student program as attractive as the one I used when entering this US in the 1980s.
- The DREAM Act proposes to give children of illegal immigrants a legal way to stay in the country. Whether it is the original Dream act or the modified version by Senator Marco Rubio, the purpose is the same – keep and grow with those who love and cherish America.
We do not have time for comprehensive reform, or does Congress show any willingness to bridge the divide, specially in this election year and beyond. If you have any doubts about our place in the world, pickup a copy of Jim Clifton’s Coming Jobs War or Thomas Friedman’s many tomes, including That Used to be Us.
The StartupVisa, Green card acceleration and Congress… aaarggh!
Christian and I recently submitted this post to the editors at Omaha World-Herald and the Des Moines Register in support of various bills pending in congress. I am a strong believer in immigration reform that accelerates the entry of highly skilled, technical resources to our shores and is imperative to our growth.
These initiatives have been reported on recently by Silicon Prairie News, discussed in a fair amount of detail on a recent Prairiecast and are supported, tracked and documented by the StartupVisa website.
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America’s technology industry is hungry for talent to feed our entrepreneurial spirit to drive our leadership. Our universities remain a target for students worldwide to receive higher education. Our companies continue to need qualified engineers and developers. Yet, we graduate thousands of developers and give them no path to employment here in the United States. We choose to pave a way for them to go back to their native countries when we should be stapling a green card to the very valuable diplomas we hand over. We also have several hundred-thousand skilled technology workers who arrived here on a myriad of temporary visas but are beholden to their sponsoring employers, unable to create companies – the true engines of growth – due largely to bureaucracies and delays in immigration policy.
Congress has solutions on the docket but lacks the wherewithal to act. A bill that passed the house by a vote of 389-15 (H.R. 3012) languishes in Senate as it awaits Iowa Senator Grassley’s approval before moving to the Senate floor for a vote. If approved, it stands to accelerate approvals of green card applications to over 500,000 H1b visa holders. These green cards will enable many individuals to create more high-tech companies that hire an exponentially large number of people. These startups create intellectual property so eagerly sought worldwide. It will incentivize many to stay in the US and productively contribute further to our economy rather than returning to their home countries where they can be equally accretive to job creation.
We continue to graduate students from our institutions of higher education with valuable bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees yet provide the same graduates with little to no ability to work in the country. These highly trained, motivated individuals consequently return to their home countries or countries like Canada with more relaxed immigration policy. We should incent these graduates with accelerated ability to stay in the US and create companies. Companies like Microsoft, Facebook and Google weren’t created by seasoned businessmen – they were created by skilled and hungry college students with an ability to execute on their dreams. We need thousands more such students unleashing the power of our economy.
Talented individuals still eye America’s global dominance in technology. Many would love an opportunity to create businesses in this country and hire Americans, buy and build real estate, invest in communities and become accelerators in our communities. The StartupVisa (H.R. 1114 and S 565) propose to deliver on this promise and needs Congressional support. The really good news is that this enables foreign students and workers who are already in the U.S. to qualify for a visa. The requirements for them are very reasonable—they must show that they have enough in savings not to be a burden to American taxpayers, and get a qualified investor or a government entity such as the Small Business Administration to validate their ideas by making a modest investment.
Yes, there is a risk for holders of this visa that, if their venture fails or doesn’t go anywhere, they must start again or leave the U.S. Precisely! The Startup Visa is for risk takers who are willing to build companies that rival the largest, most successful ventures and hire the brightest talent to develop products sold globally.
These initiatives in Congress are supported by many senior representatives and senators. Several in the technology industry, venture capital, education and government support these initiatives. We need support in Congress and the constituencies to recognize and deliver on these initiatives to maintain and grow our economic and technical leadership.