Duke inspired propaganda
Duke inspired propaganda
Date: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 4:26 PM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1622 -- 1/10/2007 >>>>>
As explained in the previous newsletter, the Duke study is being repeated
in the press ad-infinitum. It's all part of a coordinated lobbying campaign
to raise the H-1B cap.
The Washington Post article is one of the worst, but also the most blunt
about the intent of the propaganda:
Technology-industry lobbyists have already cited the study in a
push to persuade Congress to increase the annual allotment of H-1B
visas, which allow U.S. companies to sponsor temporary workers in
specialty occupations, such as computer programming and systems
analysis. The companies say they cannot find enough Americans to
fill jobs; other proponents contend that globalization requires
U.S. companies to import talented workers
Most articles you see are unabashed shortage shouting. The following themes
are recurring:
* There are vast shortages of high-tech workers in the USA.
* There will be vast shortages of high-tech workers in the USA.
* High-tech immigrants are essential to our economy, especially those from
India, China, and Taiwan. We need to give these entrepreneurs H-1B visas
and green cards so that they will stay here and produce jobs for us.
* Sob stories about hard working foreign students who want nothing more
than to work in the U.S., and while they are at it -- to bring their wives,
kids, and extended families.
The Salon article makes an interesting point, although I am an American who
does get it. Yes, we appreciate the whole picture, unlike those pukes from
Duke!
The implication, although never stated explicitly, is clear:
Those who focus only on the wage pressure exerted on native-born
Americans by immigrants (legal or illegal) are not appreciating
the whole picture.
NOTE: It was brought to my attention that Tarun Wadhwa was one of the
contributing students to the Duke study. It appeas that nepotism is alive
an well at Duke (see the list of authors).
Article 1:
http://www.amny.com/news/local/am-visa0108,0,7070775.story#topix
Job-seeking students hit visa wall
Alfredo works most evenings as a waiter in a trendy East Village
restaurant. On his days off, he searches the classifieds for more
cash-paying jobs. Like most undocumented immigrants, Alfredo, 25, from
Chile, works and lives off the books. Unlike many, however, he came to the
United States as a college student and earned an education at a New York
university.
Article 2:
http://www.amny.com/news/local/am-visaside0108,0,2235109.story
Navigating the H-1B visa maze
The strict guidelines that businesses have to follow before hiring a
foreign university graduate are so demanding and expensive that they often
dissuade them from even tackling the task, experts say.
Article 3:
http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/04/news/economy/jobs_outlook/index.htm
Skilled worker shortage hurts U.S.
Employers would be hiring more if they could just find the skilled workers
they need.
Article 4:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2078848,00.asp
Report: Specialized Skill Shortages to Swell IT Salaries
Driving up salaries for workers with the right mix of specialized skills,
technology-based industries are expect to continue to face shortages of
talent this year, according to market analysis released Jan. 3 by
Philadelphia-based Yoh, a provider of outsourcing services.
Article 5:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/05/BUGUKNCDS91.DTL
Immigrants loom large at startups
Study tallies contributions of foreign-born founders
More than half of the Silicon Valley companies founded in the past decade
were led by at least one immigrant, according to a new study on the
contributions of foreign-born entrepreneurs.
Article 6:
http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_4955163
Coming to America to live the Silicon Valley dream
Sudhakar Muddu left everything familiar in his homeland of India in 1990 to
attend Yale University on a post-graduate scholarship. He later worked for
IBM and Silicon Graphics.
But he didn't leave family and home just to have his name in a company
directory. He staked everything on the Silicon Valley Dream - starting a
tech company.
Article 7:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07005/751411-28.stm
Report says foreign born start a quarter of tech firms
In findings that supporters say bolster the argument for more speciality
visas for foreign workers, a study released this week says about a quarter
of the technology and engineering companies launched in the past decade had
at least one foreign-born founder.
Article 8:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/03/AR2007010301678_pf.html
Immigrants a Driving Force Behind Start-Ups, Study Says
Tech Industry Clamors to Get More Visas for Foreign Workers
About 25 percent of the technology and engineering companies launched in
the past decade had at least one foreign-born founder, according to a study
released yesterday that throws new information into the debate over foreign
workers who arrive in the United States on specialty visas.
Article 9:
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2007/01/04/ohio_immigration/index.html
Too much globalization, or not enough?
Twenty-five percent of the technology and engineering companies started in
the United States between 1995 and 2005 had at least one key co-founder who
was an immigrant, reports a new study from researchers at the Pratt School
of Engineering at Duke University.
Article 10:
http://www.syracuse.com/business/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/business-6/1167991368240410.xml&coll=1
Immigrants founded 52% of Silicon Valley ventures
Foreign-born entrepreneurs were behind one in four U.S. technology startups
over the past decade, according to a study published Thursday.
Article 11:
http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=17&artnum=2&issue=20070104
Immigrants Create Jobs, Study Says
Foreign-born executives spearheaded a quarter of the tech and engineering
firms launched over the past decade, says a new study suggesting that
skilled immigrants create - rather than take - American jobs. The findings
undercut a myth that immigrants take skilled work from those already here,
Griswold says.
1. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.amny.com/news/local/am-visa0108,0,7070775.story#topix
Job-seeking students hit visa wall
By Sara Stefanini
Special to amNewYork
January 8, 2007
Alfredo works most evenings as a waiter in a trendy East Village
restaurant. On his days off, he searches the classifieds for more
cash-paying jobs.
Like most undocumented immigrants, Alfredo, 25, from Chile, works and lives
off the books. Unlike many, however, he came to the United States as a
college student and earned an education at a New York university.
But after graduating in 2004, Alfredo struggled to find a company that
would sponsor his application for a worker's visa.
"My plan was, stay here 10 years, make money, get experience and then go
home," he said. "But companies would hire me, then I tell them I need a
visa and they'd say, 'Sorry, we cannot do that,' and that's it."
So when Alfredo's student visa eventually expired in 2005, he fell into
illegal status, becoming one of almost 8 million undocumented workers in
the U.S. The trouble of finding sponsors hinders the job searches of many
foreign graduates.
No one keeps track of just how many do not get visas, but the number is
growing, several advocates agreed.
The costs and requirements companies must meet to hire foreigners often
discourage them from trying and even prevent those who are willing to do
so, advocates said. These problems make it increasingly difficult for
foreign students such as Alfredo to find work legally, and can force those
who don't want to go home to look for illicit ways to stay, they said.
Once foreign students graduate, they get a temporary Optional Practical
Training visa, which gives them a year to find an employer who will sponsor
their application for a worker's visa, called the H-1B. Companies must
prove to the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services that the foreign
candidate will be a unique asset and pay fees that can add up to several
thousand dollars, said Deborah Notkin, an immigration attorney.
"The H-1B is very cumbersome and expensive for employers, so a lot of them
would rather hire a citizen than jump through hoops," Notkin said.
Even if they do agree to sponsor someone, they can't always get the visa,
she added. The number of H-1B visas issued nationwide each year is limited
to 65,000, plus 20,000 for master's degree graduates, a supply that has
been running out sooner and sooner every year. The Fiscal 2007 quota was
filled on May 26, according to Citizen and Immigration Services.
To cut down on the number of skilled foreigners who are forced to go home,
the government should loosen the cap on working visas, allowing it to
adjust according to market demand, said Lynn Shotwell, executive director
of the advocacy group American Council on International Personnel.
The visa maximum is used to limit the number of foreign workers coming to
the U.S., said Shawn Saucier, a spokesman for Citizen and Immigration
Services. People who don't receive them on their first try can go back to
their home countries and apply again, he said.
Alfredo, who spoke to amNew York on the condition that his name be changed,
said he received seven job offers during his practical training year, but
the employers recanted each time they discovered he needed a visa. When an
advertising agency finally agreed to sponsor him, he heard that that year's
quota had been filled.
"I even tried asking if they could pay me under the table, and of course
they said no," he said. "In that little desperate attempt to get something,
I messed everything up, so now I couldn't go back to them even if I had
papers."
When Alfredo's practical training visa expired, he had two options, either
go back to Chile or stay in the United States illegally. He decided that
even as a waiter, he could make more money here.
Last January, Alfredo enlisted an immigration lawyer to arrange for a fake
business, called a shell, to sponsor him. Shell companies usually just set
up mail addresses and apply to sponsor foreigners to work for a business
that doesn't exist, Saucier said. He could not estimate how many there are.
Alfredo paid half of the $7,000 fee upfront. "If nothing happens after a
year, I will look at it as lost money," he said.
Putri, an Indonesian graduate who also asked to have her name changed, has
experienced similar rejection. She initially found an employer to sponsor
her, but was forced to quit a few months later and is staying on that visa
illegally while she looks for another employer.
"I've cried many a night because I've lost so many jobs when I told them
I'm a foreigner," said Putri, 24.
2. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.amny.com/news/local/am-visaside0108,0,2235109.story
Navigating the H-1B visa maze
By Sara Stefanini
Special to amNewYork
January 8, 2007
The strict guidelines that businesses have to follow before hiring a
foreign university graduate are so demanding and expensive that they often
dissuade them from even tackling the task, experts say.
Once a company agrees to sponsor an H-1B visa applicant, for example, it
has to explain why that person is more valuable than a U.S. citizen would
be. If the company's average salary for that position is lower than the
State Employment Security Agency's, it also has to agree to pay the higher
sum.
The H-1B is a temporary visa, valid up to six years, which can eventually
lead to a Green Card.
The 85,000 H-1B visas available every year are divided into categories
according to skill level, with, for instance, Nobel scholars at the top,
followed by master's graduates and, at the very bottom, people with
bachelor's degrees, according to Lynn Shotwell, executive director of the
American Council on International Personnel.
"Even fashion models have to prove that they have distinguished merit in
their field and that they're here for a distinguished event," said Shawn
Saucier, a spokesman for U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services.
Each country is also limited to a certain number of visas per year,
Shotwell said.
"So Jamaica has the same cap, in theory, as China," she said.
The restrictions cause particular problems for companies looking for
graduates from programs like engineering, math or computer science,
Shotwell said.
"Many of the students coming out of those fields are foreign," she said.
"So even though they're qualified, it certainly is more advantageous to
hire Americans."
3. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/04/news/economy/jobs_outlook/index.htm
Skilled worker shortage hurts U.S.
Employers would be hiring more if they could just find the skilled workers
they need.
By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer
January 5 2007: 2:56 PM EST
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The biggest problem with job growth right now
isn't too few new jobs. It's too few skilled workers.
The Labor Department's December employment report Friday showed stronger
than expected job and wage growth, with a net gain of 167,000 jobs in the
month, and average hourly wages up 4.2 percent from a year ago. But even in
this report, the pace of job gains was showing signs of slowing down.
The fourth quarter gain was below the third quarter and 2006 saw 143,000
fewer jobs added to payrolls than in 2005, or almost a month's worth of
hiring. And that's a comparison to a year in which hurricanes Katrina and
Rita took a bite out of jobs.
In addition, one survey earlier in the week from employment service ADP
released Wednesday showed U.S. private sector employment shrank in
December, the first decline in 3-1/2 years.
But many economists and labor market experts say that job growth and the
economy overall would be significantly stronger if employers could find the
skilled workers they really need.
"I'm hearing across the board, across industries, companies indicating they
can't exploit market opportunity because they can't find people with the
right skills," said Jeff Summer, an executive at Deloitte Consulting who
leads the firm's management practice. He said that there's virtually no
long-term unemployment for skilled workers.
"It's down to the nub already," he said. "Supply and demand is completely
out of whack."
Some experts say part of the blame for the slowdown in the economy in last
year's second half can be laid on labor constraints - companies couldn't
expand as fast as they wanted due to a lack of workers with the right
skills.
Anthony Chan, chief economist for JPMorgan Private Client Services, said
employers are constantly citing the inability to find the workers they need
as one of their top problems, if not their biggest worry.
Businesses "feel there's real [unmet] demand out there," he said, adding
that "economic growth would be faster" if there wasn't this tight supply of
workers.
The unemployment rate in December stayed at 4.5 percent. But the rate for
college-educated workers was just 1.9 percent in December, near the rate
for that group in 1998 and 1999, when the economy was white-hot. The lowest
rate for college grads on record was 1.5 percent in three months during
2000.
Mark Vitner, chief economist for Wachovia, said another sign of the tight
labor market is the growing number of job openings being reported by the
Labor Department in a separate report, even as hiring posts modest gains.
The most recent report shows 4.2 million job openings in October, up 8.8
percent from a year earlier, while hirings rose just 1.5 percent.
Meanwhile, the number of workers quitting, retiring, getting fired or
laid-off grew only 0.6 percent.
"With this level of unemployment, the only way they can find the workers
they need is to hire them away from someone else, hire them from someplace
else, or hire someone without the necessary skills," said Vitner. "All
these things cut into productivity growth."
The latest tally of announced job cuts by outplacement firm Challenger,
Gray & Christmas showed a 22 percent drop from 2005 to the lowest in six
years, even as the auto industry slashed thousands of hourly workers,
mostly due to the problems at General Motors (Charts) and Ford Motor
(Charts).
Outside the auto industry, most employers are reluctant to cut staff due to
the tight supply of workers, said John Challenger, the firm's CEO.
"Companies are holding onto their people. They're focusing on retention
programs. Even if they're in a little slower period, they worry about being
able to find the people they need if they see the business pickup."
Still, even with the employment numbers showing a tight supply, some of
those college-educated job seekers say they're not seeing the supply-demand
equation tip in their favor yet.
Steven Koch said he spent 25 years at IBM (Charts), the last five as a
procurement engineer, in charge of buying parts to go into computers. But
after Chinese computer company Lenovo bought the IBM personal computer
division, his job was relocated to North Carolina from New York and he
decided not to follow. He's been without a job since May, despite his
masters in computer science.
"I've applied to about 150 companies within 70 miles of where we live. The
opportunities are not there," said Koch. "There were about six of us from
Lenovo who decided not to go to North Carolina. Not one of us has found a
job in the field with a comparable salary. One decided to sell cars."
Challenger said despite the tight market, his figures show job search times
are about the same as they were a couple of years ago, when the number of
unemployed college-educated job seekers was almost 50 percent higher than
it is today.
Part of that may be because of increased competition from job applicants
who already have a job. A recent survey by the Society for Human Resource
Management found three-quarters of those with jobs said they were looking
for a job. But Challenger said employers are being very cautious about
adding staff in the current tight market, much more cautious than in the
late 1990s.
"Companies are more measured. They're looking closely at who they hire," he
said.
Koch said that was his experience as well. He said several times he's gone
on job interviews and been told he was a strong candidate, only to later be
told the company decided not to fill the position.
"One company said, 'Even though you're the top candidate, you're not
exactly what they were looking for'," he said. He suspects that what many
companies are looking for is younger skilled workers with lower salary
demands.
But Challenger said the inability to hire, either due to reluctance or a
tight labor market, is one factor constraining economic growth.
"When the economy hits some natural barriers, it slows it down, and one of
those barriers is when the pool of workers begins to dry up," he said. "The
lifeblood of the economy today is skilled workers."
And most experts agreed the shortage of skilled workers is likely to
persist longer than it did in the late 1990s. That earlier tightness was
fed by dot.com companies burning through investors' cash to hire people.
The latest round of hiring is being driven by stronger corporate balance
sheets, and as more retiring Baby Boomers start leaving the work force.
Deloitte's Summer said that the current tightness will be a problem for
business at least into the next decade, when demographic trends should
start to help.
"We start to see some relief in 2012, but we'll probably be dealing with
this through 2015, even 2020," he said. "Companies that are looking at this
are saying, 'We have to re-invent what we're doing here.' Just paying
people more won't be the answer. They really need to be treating the talent
market as a customer market more than they ever have before."
4. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2078848,00.asp
Report: Specialized Skill Shortages to Swell IT Salaries
January 3, 2007
By Deborah Rothberg
Driving up salaries for workers with the right mix of specialized skills,
technology-based industries are expect to continue to face shortages of
talent this year, according to market analysis released Jan. 3 by
Philadelphia-based Yoh, a provider of outsourcing services.
Yoh predicts that the tightest candidate markets will be found among
workers with specialized technical skills and specific domain and industry
experience. This is expected to be strongest among the technology services
and device manufacturers in the hardware space, as well as clinical
research and R&D development in the pharmaceutical, medical device and
biotech spaces.
R&D and software development are expected to have talent bases falling
short of companies' needs. Demand in the R&D space will include clinical
research associates, biostaticians, firmware and hardware engineers. Demand
in the software development area will include Business Objects, Java, MS
developers, SAS programmers and systems architects.
Yoh also suggests that a steady stream of upgrades by ERP vendors, as well
as continued adoption of SOA platforms, is creating a need for Oracle and
SAP consultants as well as experienced database administrators.
The report sorts employer demand for specific tech skills by major U.S.
technology hubs. In Silicon Valley the demand is strongest among firmware
engineers, ASIC design engineers and embedded engineers. Seattle has a
shortage of software developer engineers, hardware/firmware engineers and
clinical data mangers. And in Austin, Dallas and Houston, companies are
looking for .NET, C# developers, Java/J2EE architects and developers and
SQL database administrators.
"The technology market continues to grow, which keeps pushing wages up,"
says Jim Lanzalotto, vice president of strategy and marketing at Yoh.
"Hiring managers are continuing to look for specialized talent to help them
keep up with maturing technology. For example, a candidate with .Net
developer skills and pharmaceutical experience is far more engaging to a
hiring manager than a candidate with the skills but not the market
expertise or experience."
A trend is also seen towards reaching beyond geographic boundaries for
talent, no longer insisting the technology consultants be on site.
Check out eWEEK.com's IT Management Center for the latest news, reviews and
analysis on IT management from CIOInsight.com.
5. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/05/BUGUKNCDS91.DTL
Immigrants loom large at startups
Study tallies contributions of foreign-born founders
- Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, January 5, 2007
More than half of the Silicon Valley companies founded in the past decade
were led by at least one immigrant, according to a new study on the
contributions of foreign-born entrepreneurs.
Nationwide, about a quarter of technology and engineering companies created
from 1995 through 2004 had at least one foreign-born founder, according to
the report by Duke University's Master of Engineering Management program.
The study comes as a new Democrat-led Congress convenes and gears up for
what is expected to be another heated debate over U.S. immigration policy,
particularly on the role of highly skilled foreign workers.
"What is clear is that immigrants have become a significant driving force
in the creation of new businesses and intellectual property in the U.S. --
and that their contributions have increased over the past decade," said the
report, which was released Thursday.
The Duke University report expanded on a 1999 study by UC Berkeley
Professor AnnaLee Saxenian, which found that foreign-born scientists and
engineers, mainly from India and China, played a critical role in the
growth of the California economy, particularly in Silicon Valley.
The Duke University report was based on a survey of more than 2,000
engineering and technology companies founded from 1995 through 2004.
The report says more than 25 percent of the foreign-born founders were from
India, while others came from countries such as the United Kingdom, China,
Taiwan and Germany.
The study defined an immigrant-founded firm as having at lease one founder
who was born as a citizen of another country before moving to the United
States.
The report also found that:
-- Immigrant-founded companies generated $52 billion sales and employed
450,000 workers in 2005.
-- Foreign citizens living in the United States contributed 24.2 percent of
international patent applications in 2006.
-- California had the highest percentage of immigrant-founded firms at 39
percent, followed by New Jersey with 38 percent and Georgia with 30
percent.
Among the prominent immigrant entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are Jerry
Yang, a co-founder of Yahoo who emigrated from Taiwan, and Sergey Brin, who
co-founded Google and who came from Russia.
Others include Vinod Khosla, who is from India, and Andy Bechtolsheim, who
is from Germany, both co-founders of Sun Microsystems.
"The phenomenon I observed in Silicon Valley in the 1990s has not only
continued, it has become a national phenomenon: the rise of immigrant
entrepreneurs in the technology sector," Saxenian, who is the dean of the
UC Berkeley School of Information, said in an interview.
"We often talk about immigration in terms of low-skilled undocumented
workers," she added. "The high-skilled workforce is contributing directly
to the U.S. economy by creating new firms, new jobs, new wealth. It's easy
to assume that immigrants are always displacing U.S. workers. In this case,
they are creating new opportunities."
John Keeley, director of communications at the Center for Immigration
Studies, a Washington think tank focused on immigration issues, disputed
the group's conclusions.
He cited his organization's study from several years ago that said
immigrants had higher rates of entrepreneurship than native-born Americans
about 30 years ago. But that has changed over the past decades because most
recent immigrants are unskilled, he said.
"The long and short of it is our current immigration policy doesn't by
design bring entrepreneurs," Keeley said. "Instead, it brings busboys and
nannies and landscapers because immigration overwhelmingly is from the
undereducated, lower-skilled Third World."
Marcus Courtney, president of the Washington Alliance of Technology
Workers, a union of high-tech workers, said the report ignores the negative
impact of immigration, especially federal guest worker programs, on the
country's technology workforce.
WashTech has been critical of federal guest-worker programs, such as the
H-1B visa program, that allow U.S. tech companies to hire technologists and
engineers from other countries.
Courtney said the report ignores the U.S. high-tech jobs that have been
lost over the past several years because of offshoring and layoffs.
"The idea that the high-tech economy is only creating jobs totally ignores
the fact that there was a deep recession," he said.
This study, Courtney added, "fails to give a total picture."
E-mail Benjamin Pimentel at bpimentel@sfchronicle.com.
6. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_4955163
Coming to America to live the Silicon Valley dream
By John Boudreau, MEDIANEWS STAFF
Inside Bay Area
Article Last Updated:
Sudhakar Muddu left everything familiar in his homeland of India in 1990 to
attend Yale University on a post-graduate scholarship. He later worked for
IBM and Silicon Graphics.
But he didn't leave family and home just to have his name in a company
directory. He staked everything on the Silicon Valley Dream - starting a
tech company.
"Leaving family is such a hardship," said Muddu, now on his second startup,
Kazeon, a 3-year-old Mountain View maker of search technology for
businesses. "So the dream is to make a mark, to prove something to your
family and to the world."
Muddu's story is replayed over and over in the valley, where, according to
a study being published Thursday, more than half of local startups
established in the past decade were founded by people born overseas.
The report, "America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs," written by researchers
from Duke University and the University of California, Berkeley, confirms
what many in the valley already know: Skilled immigrants from India,
Taiwan, China and other countries play key roles in the creation of wealth
and jobs. Nationwide, 25 percent of tech and engineering startups have
founders who are immigrants.
In many ways, Silicon Valley's risk-taking ethos is a perfect fit for
immigrants who often chance everything to come to the United States.
"For those of us who have the guts to leave our country and our family,
just settling for a job is not good enough," said Vivek Khuller, founder of
Mountain View-based DiVitas Networks, whose technology allows professionals
to sync their work phones, e-mail and other communications applications
with their mobile phones. "It's in your blood to take risks."
"America has so many advantages," including a legal and financial system
that encourages entrepreneurship, said Vivek Wadhwa, the study's primary
author who is executive-in-residence at the Pratt School of Engineering at
Duke University. But, he added, "The secret ingredient is the immigrants
who come here. These are people used to being in a land of a billion people
and fighting corruption and all the obstacles of that society. You take
those people and put them in fertile ground and they flourish."
The contributions of skilled immigrants to U.S. society is often lost in
the debate about undocumented immigrants, Wadhwa said. So he decided to
take another look at their influence in the nation's technology and
engineering sectors.
The report, which builds on the 1999 research of AnnaLee Saxenian, dean of
the School of Information at UC Berkeley, echoes a recent study by the
National Venture Capital Association. That report said 47 percent of
venture-backed
startups have immigrant founders.
The Duke study, in which
2,054 engineering and tech companies founded from 1995 through 2005 were
surveyed, revealed that 52 percent of valley startups had at least one
immigrant as a key founder. In the Research Triangle Park in North
Carolina, less than 19 percent of the startups had an immigrant founder.
The report notes a demographic shift since Saxenian's study. She observed
that immigrants born in China and Taiwan accounted for 17 percent of the
founders of valley start-ups established between 1980 and 1998. Those from
India accounted for 7 percent.
The Duke study found that Indians are now the leading group. Indians
founded more than 15 percent of valley start-ups established between 1995
and 2005, while 13 percent were started by Chinese and Taiwanese
immigrants.
The shift reflects the growth of the valley's Indian population. There were
an estimated
157,000 Indians living in Santa Clara and Alameda counties in 2005, a 39
percent jump from 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Rafiq Dossani, senior research scholar at Stanford University who studies
India's technology sector and its relationship to Silicon Valley,
questioned some of the report's methodology, including the use of graduate
students and research assistants to phone the companies, rather than
meeting face to face with executives to ensure more accurate reporting. He
also believes the study should have distinguished between immigrants who
came to the United States as young children and those who came later in
life, such as college students.
"I don't think it's academically rigorous. But it certainly has a value,
which is to show that immigrants continue to make an impact through the
bubble, through the burst and into the recovery," said Dossani.
Vietnamese are the second-largest Asian group in the valley, but they do
not show up in large numbers when it comes to founding engineering or tech
companies, the Duke study revealed.
That does not surprise Yuric Hannart, a Vietnamese-American who founded
Ontelix, a Santa Clara startup that makes open-source software for small
and medium-sized businesses. Hannart, who changed his Vietnamese name when
he became a U.S. citizen in 1980, said the first wave of Vietnamese were
political refugees in the 1970s. They came with children to feed, not elite
university degrees, like many Taiwanese, Chinese and Indians, he added.
"Many of their businesses were started by necessity rather than by choice,"
Hannart said. "They came here with nothing. Many could not speak English.
They started restaurants and mom-and-pop stores."
Saxenian said that immigrant entrepreneurs add to the valley's ecosystem of
venture capital, world-class universities and abundant talent. As business
opportunities and markets continue to open up in countries like India,
China and Vietnam, skilled immigrant workers will enable valley companies
to expand further overseas.
"They are connecting us to new markets we wouldn't have access to," she
said.
Contact John Boudreau at jboudreau@mercurynews.com.
7. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07005/751411-28.stm
Report says foreign born start a quarter of tech firms
Friday, January 05, 2007
By Krissah Williams, The Washington Post
WASHINGTON -- In findings that supporters say bolster the argument for more
speciality visas for foreign workers, a study released this week says about
a quarter of the technology and engineering companies launched in the past
decade had at least one foreign-born founder.
The report, based on telephone surveys with 2,054 companies and projections
by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and at Duke
University, found that immigrants -- mostly from India and China -- helped
start hundreds of companies with estimated sales of nearly $50 billion.
Technology-industry lobbyists already have cited the study in a push to
persuade Congress to increase the annual allotment of H-1B visas, which
allow U.S. companies to sponsor temporary workers in specialty occupations,
such as computer programming and systems analysis. The companies say they
cannot find enough Americans to fill jobs; other proponents contend that
globalization requires U.S. companies to import talented workers.
"This research shows that immigrants have become a significant driving
force in the creation of new businesses and intellectual property in the
U.S. -- and that their contributions have increased over the past decade,"
wrote the study's author, Vivek Wadhwa, a former technology executive who
immigrated from India with his family as a young man.
Another study will be released next month by the Center for Immigration
Studies, which supports low levels of immigration. That report says most
specialty visa holders come to the United States to do low-level
professional jobs for relatively low pay.
Mr. Wadhwa's study looked at founders of engineering and technology
companies started from 1995 to 2005, and analyzed the database of the World
Intellectual Property Organization Patent Cooperation Treaty. About 25
percent of international patents filed in the United States in 2006 were
submitted by immigrants.
Scott McNealy, chairman and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, is among the
advocates for an expanded visa program, writing editorials, calling members
of Congress and supporting political action committees.
Mr. McNealy noted that immigrants Vinod Kosla of India and Andy
Bechtelsheim of Germany co-founded Sun. The company "created tens of
thousands of jobs that have generated billions of dollars in exports and
has created thousands of patents and intellectual-property positions," Mr.
McNealy said. "Why would you have any arbitrary number on smart people?"
Last year, the industry raised the issue in the national debate over
immigration reform, but Congress ended its session without acting on the
Securing Knowledge, Innovation and Leadership Act. The bill would increase
the annual quota on the H-1B visas to 115,000 from 65,000, eliminate
green-card caps for some advanced-degree holders and streamline the
processing of employment-based green cards. Tech lobbyists want to revive
it.
"We are working on that new piece of legislation that will hopefully be a
great fix for a lot of our companies," said Andrea Hoffman, vice president
of government and political affairs for TechNet, an industry lobby backed
by hundreds of technology companies, including Apple Computer, Microsoft
and Google.
Those who favor low levels of immigration and oppose expanding the
specialty-worker programs contend that foreigners accept lower pay and
depress wages.
Jessica Vaughan, an analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies in
Washington, said an increase in the cap would amount to "a subsidy for
business because it allows them to bring cheaper labor from overseas."
It is unknown how many of the immigrants who founded technology companies
had H-1B visas.
At least one local company was founded by a former H-1B holder.
Pakistan native Razi Imam launched his Robinson-based software firm
Landslide Technologies three years ago, more than a decade after obtaining
an H1-B visa to work for Iris Technologies in Greensburg.
Mr. Imam initially came to the United States in 1988 on a student visa to
study for an MBA at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. By 2000, he had
become a U.S. citizen and, after working for a handful of local firms,
founded Landslide, which now employs about 30.
"We're hoping to get to 100 employees in the next 2 1/2 to three years,"
Mr. Imam said.
8. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/03/AR2007010301678_pf.html
Immigrants a Driving Force Behind Start-Ups, Study Says
Tech Industry Clamors to Get More Visas for Foreign Workers
By Krissah Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 4, 2007; D05
About 25 percent of the technology and engineering companies launched in
the past decade had at least one foreign-born founder, according to a study
released yesterday that throws new information into the debate over foreign
workers who arrive in the United States on specialty visas.
The report, based on telephone surveys with 2,054 companies and projections
by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and at Duke
University, found that immigrants -- mostly from India and China -- helped
start hundreds of companies with estimated sales of nearly $50 billion. It
was written by a former technology executive who was an immigrant himself.
Technology-industry lobbyists have already cited the study in a push to
persuade Congress to increase the annual allotment of H-1B visas, which
allow U.S. companies to sponsor temporary workers in specialty occupations,
such as computer programming and systems analysis. The companies say they
cannot find enough Americans to fill jobs; other proponents contend that
globalization requires U.S. companies to import talented workers.
"This research shows that immigrants have become a significant driving
force in the creation of new businesses and intellectual property in the
U.S. -- and that their contributions have increased over the past decade,"
wrote Vivek Wadhwa, the study's author, who immigrated from India with his
family as a young man.
Another study will be released next month by the Center for Immigration
Studies, which supports low levels of immigration. That report says most
specialty visa holders come to the United States to do low-level
professional jobs for relatively low pay.
Wadhwa's study looked at founders of engineering and technology companies
started from 1995 to 2005, and analyzed the World Intellectual Property
Organization Patent Cooperation Treaty database. About 25 percent of
international patents filed in the United States in 2006 were submitted by
immigrants.
Scott McNealy, chairman and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, is among the
advocates for an expanded visa program, writing editorials, calling members
of Congress and supporting political action committees.
McNealy noted that immigrants Vinod Kosla of India and Andy Bechtelsheim of
Germany co-founded Sun. The company "created tens of thousands of jobs that
have generated billions of dollars in exports and has created thousands of
patents and intellectual-property positions," McNealy said. "Why would you
have any arbitrary number on smart people?"
Last year, the industry raised the issue in the national debate over
immigration reform, but Congress ended its session without acting on the
Securing Knowledge, Innovation and Leadership Act. The bill would increase
the annual quota on the H-1B visas to 115,000 from 65,000, eliminate
green-card caps for some advanced-degree holders and streamline the
processing of employment-based green cards. Tech lobbyists want to revive
it.
"We are working on that new piece of legislation that will hopefully be a
great fix for a lot of our companies," said Andrea Hoffman, vice president
of government and political affairs for TechNet, an industry lobby backed
by hundreds of technology companies, including Apple Computer, Microsoft
and Google.
Those who favor low levels of immigration and oppose expanding the
specialty-worker programs contend that foreigners accept lower pay and
depress wages.
Jessica M. Vaughan, an analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, said
an increase in the cap would amount to "a subsidy for business because it
allows them to bring cheaper labor from overseas."
It is unknown how many of the immigrants who founded technology companies
had H-1B visas.
At least two Northern Virginia tech companies were founded by former H-1B
holders. Sudhakar V. Shenoy, founder and chief executive of Reston-based
Information Management Consultants, immigrated to the United States in 1970
after graduating from the Indian Institutes of Technology -- known
informally as the "MIT of India" -- and attending graduate school in
Connecticut. In 1974, he was offered an H-1B visa, and a manufacturing
company sponsored his green card in 1977. Four years later, he founded IMC,
which has 350 employees in Reston and 125 in Pune, India.
Peter Harrison came from Britain on the specialty visa and later became
chief executive of GlobalLogic (formerly Induslogic), a Vienna-based
software development company founded in 2000 by two men from India, who
were also H-1B holders.
The company has grown rapidly and employs 1,600 people in the United
States, India and Ukraine. Only a few dozen of them have H-1B visas.
"They are very, very hard to come by," Harrison said. "We are always at a
challenge to recruit people."
View all comments that have been posted about this article.
9. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2007/01/04/ohio_immigration/index.html
Too much globalization, or not enough?
Twenty-five percent of the technology and engineering companies started in
the United States between 1995 and 2005 had at least one key co-founder who
was an immigrant, reports a new study from researchers at the Pratt School
of Engineering at Duke University. The researchers estimate that these
companies generated $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers.
Immigrant non-citizens were also responsible for 24 percent of all
international patent applications filed from the U.S. in 2006. Indians
alone started more engineering and technology companies in the U.S. in the
last 10 years than Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese combined.
The authors of the study justifiably feel that this is an important data
point for understanding the impact of globalization and immigration upon
the United States. (Incidentally, the names of the student researchers on
the team constitute their own mini-primer on globalization: Ramakrishnan
Balasubramanian, Pradeep Kamsali, Nishanth Lingamneni, Chris Morecroft,
Niyanthi Reddy, George Robinson, Batul Tambawalla, Mark Weaver and Zhenyu
Yang.) Following up on the research of Berkeley professor AnnaLee Saxenian,
they demonstrate that skilled immigrants play a significant role in the
U.S. economy, creating jobs and valuable intellectual property. Their
conclusion: "The key to maintaining U.S. competitiveness in a global
economy is to understand our strengths and to effectively leverage these.
Skilled immigrants are one of our greatest advantages."
The implication, although never stated explicitly, is clear: Those who
focus only on the wage pressure exerted on native-born Americans by
immigrants (legal or illegal) are not appreciating the whole picture.
But the report, while adding some interesting numbers, won't do much to
change minds on the anti-immigration front. Critics are likely to argue, as
they have with previous such reports, that the underlying argument -- we
should encourage more skilled immigration because these immigrants are
great entrepreneurs and start lots of companies -- only holds true if
immigrants are likely to start more companies per capita than natives do.
But that's simply not so, say such critics as U.C. Davis' Norm Matloff.
Sure, lots of immigrants to California start new companies. But 25 percent
of all Californians in 2000 were foreign-born. According to Matloff's
crunching of the data, on a per capita basis, immigrants start fewer
companies than natives.
Then again, consider Ohio. The Duke report breaks down the numbers, state
by state. California, unsurprisingly, is at the top -- 39 percent of its
new tech companies had an immigrant co-founder. Another big winner is New
Jersey, which boasts a big cluster of Indian-founded companies. Ohio,
however, has a below-average share of immigrant-founded technology
companies: only 14 percent.
Is it a coincidence that in last year's midterm congressional elections,
Democratic candidates in Ohio were among the most vocal critics of
globalization? And could that be because while Ohio's workers suffer the
consequences of globalization -- downward pressure on wages, manufacturing
industry flight, the loss of union power -- they are also missing out on
the advantages of being part of an integrated global economy: the job
creation and economic growth that accrues from a thriving, diverse
international community of motivated immigrants? Yes, that's an
oversimplification of a complicated question, and yes, geography plays a
huge part in determining such things, but still... Maybe what Ohio needs is
more globalization, not less.
-- Andrew Leonard
10. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.syracuse.com/business/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/business-6/1167991368240410.xml&coll=1
Immigrants founded 52% of Silicon Valley ventures
Friday, January 05, 2007
By Rachel Konrad
The Associated Press
San Francisco
Foreign-born entrepreneurs were behind one in four U.S. technology startups
over the past decade, according to a study published Thursday.
A team of researchers at Duke University estimated that 25 percent of
technology and engineering companies started from 1995 to 2005 had at least
one senior executive a founder, chief executive, president or chief
technology officer born outside the United States.
Their contributions to corporate coffers, employment and U.S.
competitiveness in the global technology sector offer a counterpoint to the
recent political debate over immigration and the economy, which largely
centers on unskilled, illegal workers in low-wage jobs.
Lead researcher Vivek Wadhwa, Duke's executive in residence and the founder
of two tech startups in North Carolina's Research Triangle, said the
country should make the most of its ability to "get the best and brightest
from around the world.
"It's one thing if your gardener gets deported," he said. "But if these
entrepreneurs leave, we're really denting our intellectual property
creation."
Scott McNealy, chairman and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, is among the
advocates for an expanded visa program. He noted that immigrants Vinod
Kosla, of India, and Andy Bechtelsheim, of Germany, co-founded Sun. The
company "created tens of thousands of jobs that have generated billions of
dollars in exports and has created thousands of patents and
intellectual-property positions," McNealy said. "Why would you have any
arbitrary number on smart people?"
The study comes nearly eight years after an influential report from the
University of California, Berkeley, on the impact of foreign-born
entrepreneurs.
AnnaLee Saxenian, now dean of the School of Information at UC-Berkeley,
estimated immigrants founded about 25 percent of Silicon Valley tech
companies in 1999. The Duke study found the percentage had more than
doubled, to 52 percent in 2005.
Saxenian, also co-author of the new study, said the research debunks the
notion that immigrants who come to the United States take jobs from
Americans.
"The advantage of entrepreneurs is that they're generally creating new
opportunities and new wealth that didn't even exist before them," Saxenian
said.
Researchers started with a list of 28,766 companies classified as
technology and engineering companies in Dun and Bradstreet's Million Dollar
Database, which lists companies with more than $1 million in revenue and at
least 20 employees. Researchers were able to reach senior executives to
determine the backgrounds of key founders for 2,054 of the tech startups.
The Duke researchers also found that foreign-born inventors living in the
United States without citizenship accounted for 24 percent of patent
filings last year, compared with 7.3 percent in 1998.
"The bottom line is: Why aren't these people citizens?" Wadhwa said. "We're
giving away the keys to the kingdom. This is a big, big deal once you
figure out what this means for U.S. competitiveness."
Without permanent citizenship, inventors are more likely to take valuable
intellectual property elsewhere and U.S. companies would have to compete
with them, Wadhwa said.
Last year, the industry raised the issue in the national debate over
immigration reform, but Congress ended its session without acting on the
Securing Knowledge, Innovation and Leadership Act. The bill would increase
the annual quota on the H-1B visas to 115,000 from 65,000, eliminate
green-card caps for some advanced-degree holders and streamline the
processing of employment-based green cards. Tech lobbyists want to revive
it.
11. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=17&artnum=2&issue=20070104
Immigrants Create Jobs, Study Says
BY SHEILA RILEY
FOR INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 1/4/2007
Foreign-born executives spearheaded a quarter of the tech and engineering
firms launched over the past decade, says a new study suggesting that
skilled immigrants create - rather than take - American jobs.
Research released Thursday by Duke University in Durham, N.C. and the
University of California, Berkeley, concludes that immigrant contributions
to the national tech economy reach well beyond tech clusters such as
Silicon Valley.
The report, "America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs," surveyed 2,054
companies started between 1995 and 2005. More than 25% had at least one
immigrant as a key founder - usually a CEO, chief tech officer or
development head.
"It reinforces past research that immigration plays an important role in
innovation and entrepreneurship in the American economy," said Daniel
Griswold, director of trade policy studies at the Cato Institute, a
libertarian think tank.
The findings undercut a myth that immigrants take skilled work from those
already here, Griswold says.
The study says India produced 26% of immigrant-founded tech businesses, by
far the largest group. More tech startup execs came from India than from
the U.K., China, Taiwan, and Japan combined.
The tech and engineering businesses immigrants established employed 450,000
workers and produced $52 billion in sales in 2005.
Census data from 2003, the most recent available, say 11.7% of the U.S.
population was born in another country.
Immigrant populations vary widely, a difference reflected in the study's
state-by-state breakdown.
California, with the nation's highest percentage of immigrants, also ranks
first in immigrant-founded startups almost 39%.
New Jersey follows closely with 38%. Next is Georgia with 30%, followed by
Massachusetts with 29%.
Immigrants most often launched companies in the semiconductor, computer,
communications and software industries.
Griswold calls limits on foreign workers under the U.S. H-1B visa program
"ridiculously low."
The primary annual H-1B visa quota is 65,000. Generally the visa is for
foreign workers with a bachelor's degree or higher who come to the U.S. to
take a job requiring at least that level of education.
Visas are also available for an additional 20,000 foreign workers who have
studied in the U.S. and have a master's degree or higher from a U.S.
academic institution.
"That's not just a cap on immigrants," Griswold said. "This study shows
it's a cap on startup businesses, innovation and job creation."
An expanding immigrant presence in technology doesn't surprise Marcy Stras,
who heads the business-immigration practice at law firm Baker Hostetler.
"There's a pent-up demand for H-1B visas, yet no one on The Hill seems to
listen," Stras said.
One goal of the study was to draw attention to skilled immigrants who
innovate and create jobs, says Vivek Wadhwa, an entrepreneur born in India
who led the graduate students doing the research.
"Immigration, and our ability to attract and assimilate the world's best
and the brightest, is one of our greatest advantages."said Wadhwa, an
executive in residence at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering.
Still, critics of the visa program say it's often abused. The tech industry
doesn't want more skilled workers so much as cheaper ones, they say.
Wadhwa himself doesn't view the research as an argument for more H1-B
visas.
"We need these people to come here as citizens, not temporary workers," he
said.
Many in government don't grasp the basic concepts of immigration, says
Swiss immigrant and Silicon Valley executive Aart de Geus.
He's founder and CEO of Synopsys, (SNPS) which makes electronic design
software. The Mountain View, Calif., firm employs 5,100 and reported sales
of more than $1 billion in fiscal year 2006.
"There are quite a number of politicians who are confused about the
difference between building walls on the south border and attracting
top-notch high-tech talent," he said.
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