The reason there is an interest in, and concern, about foreign born hi-tech workers and scientists is that there are not enough domestic hi-tech workers and scientists in either the U.S. or UK to meet the demand in the work place.
American high-tech companies, for one, are asking the government to allow them to recruit mor foreign born scientists to fill the need for more scientists. In the last month Google, National Semiconductor, the American Electronic Association and other companies complained to the U.S. government they are not able to recruit enough American kids as scientists and want to be able to get more foreign scientists into the U.S. According to the American Electronics Association, unemployment for computer scientists and electrical engineers is practically nonexistent (2.5 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively).
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/sts/?p=120
If you look at the 20,000 foreign skilled workers given H-1B visas to work in the U.S., you will find that the vast majority of them are male. H-1B visa expert Dr. Arun Vakil told us the foreign skilled workers are “male dominated.” And if you look at the eastern European countries, China, and other places where Americans are complaining about them producing so many more scientists than the US, you again will find the majority of the students and future scientists are male.
We have obtained data from the U.S. government that shows conclusively that high tech companies are essentially importing college educated males to fill their demand. We requested H-1B visa data from the Department of Homeland Security, and the data they supplied showed that 98% of H-1B visa entrants into the United States had a college education, and that 73% of them were male. If nurses were not included in the H-1B occupations, the figure for men would have been substantially higher. This data proves conclusively that the scientist shortage is due to the lack of college educated males in the U.S. and U.K.
In the UK, there is an identical concern, only the Brits have a better idea of where the cause of the problem lies: in school. Here’s an excerpt from one story: “Britain is failing to recruit enough world-class scientists because the country's education system is not up to the job, the UK's Confederation of British Industry has warned…. The CBI said the UK would likely need an extra 2.4m new chemists, phycisists, engineers and lab technicians by 2014. Yet, the number of graduates in physics, engineering and technology degrees has fallen by a third over the last decade, with A-Level physics and chemistry recruits falling by even more over the last 20 years.”
http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/ng.asp?id=69831-food-science-scientist-shortage
Another UK story reported that a growing number of postgraduate students in science are foreign born, noting that there is a concern that too many of these foreign born students will return to their home country, contributing rather than solving the shortage of scientists in the UK. Once again, if you look at the gender of the foreign born postgraduate students in science in the UK, the majority of them are male.
