Congress is once again deliberating whether to raise the caps on H-1B visas. Technology-intensive companies claim that a shortage of skilled workers is limiting their growth, while some labor leaders say that the so-called shortage is phony and represents an attempt by business to shift power from labor to capital. Looking at the problem more broadly, a recent study by the Council on Competitiveness suggests that the percentage of technical professionals in a nation's workforce is directly correlated with the capacity to deliver innovative products to market faster -- a key determinant in the global race for competitive advantage. Meanwhile, the number of degrees granted to Americans in math, science, and engineering has declined over the last ten years.
Senator Jay Rockefeller and Senator Bill
Frist lead a panel discussion on creating a twenty-first century American workforce.  Written Transcript of the session
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Featured Speakers: |
Richard McGinn, Chairman & CEO of Lucent Technologies -- the world's largest telecoms equipment supplier with over 145,000 employees and $30 billion in sales. Lucent is on the front lines of the competition for high-skilled workers. |
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Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Dean of the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley and former Chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisors -- she wrote an editorial in a recent issue of BusinessWeek calling upon Congress to raise the H-1B visa caps and "open the gates wide to high-skill immigrants." |
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Alan Krueger, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Princeton and former Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor -- an expert in labor economics and a thoughtful observer of the impact of technology on the workplace. |
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Lawrence Mishel, Vice President of the Economic Policy Institute -- co-author of The State of Working America 1998-99, a comprehensive review of who's winning and who's losing in the current economic boom. |
