The U.S. has fewer people employed in high-tech jobs today than in 2001, because it refuses to issue enough green cards. - Inspired by a report released by AeA, a tech trade assocation

However, how much of it is because of the recession? While tech is still a very profitable business in the U.S., the effects of our shaky economy can be felt everywhere, and unemployment rates have been on the rise for the past year.

My initial thoughts were to disagree, but looking at all the angles of this I agree. The US government is so concerned with the effect of immigration into the US, but it is crippling itself, by not allowing people to legally immigrate to the United States. We are educating and providing opportunities to educate to people from many parts of the world, but when that person wants to stay and become a member of our society, we tell them no. I think that we should seek out these great minds and allow them to become active members of our culture. Allowing them to help us regain some footing in the international market.

I was inclined to disagree with the headline but the article actually raises an excellent point. I think a lot of people are wasting opportunity in the sector, particularly second and young minorities of Latin and African-American ancestry. Meanwhile while first generation immigrants from Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and all over the world come here, get excellent educations and often times go elsewhere for work. This is largely because degrees from their own countries often aren't recognized by large corporations, and definitely won't command the same salaries of the equivalent education from the west.

There's also no real incentives for people to stay here, the process is harder now to become a citizen. Often times Indians, Iranians, Lebanese and others from the Arab world are all lumped into the big "CAUTION" category. The government can't seem to make up it's mind on whether or not it does, or doesn't want illegals to become naturalized.

BF Skinner wasn't bs-ing when he defined positive-reinforcement as it relates to behavioral science. You have to reward the actions that you wan't people to continue. The U.S. government is essentially inviting the people of the world here and then slapping them on the wrist every step of the way. No wonder they choose other countries to live in.

The government has become far more stringent about issuing visas in general in recent years – regardless of profession, merit or capability.
There has definitely been a recent exodus of people who do not hold US citizenship recently – some calling this the reverse brain drain, as a sizeable chunk of all engineers, bankers and IT professionals (all professions basic to a country's infrastructure) are not American.
"U.S. businesses large and small stand to lose critical talent, and workers who have gained valuable experience and knowledge of American industry may become potential competitors… The problem is simple. There aren't enough permanent-resident visas available each year for skilled workers and their families. And there is a limit of fewer than 10,000 visas that can be issued to immigrants from any single country. So countries with the largest populations such as India and China are allocated the same number of visas as Iceland and Mongolia," writes Vivek Wadhwa of Businessweek

Whatever happened to motivating and orienting the youth and those needing vo-rehab to high-tech positions and filling from within the U.S.'s existing population? Hmm??

If this is true then maybe we should focus on educating our own population instead of foreign students....novel idea...don't you think?

Nonsense. The U.S. has fewer people employed in high-tech jobs today than in 2001, because it refuses to educate its youth.

Well, I worked in the tech industry until 2001. I left because the bursting dot.com bubble had caused panic layoffs to ensue, and after that, the few remaining available jobs were so low-paying that it was a slap in the face to my 7 years of college education. A foreign worker here on a Visa may find it acceptable to move into an apartment with several other families so they can work for peanuts in the high-tech industry, but I do not. I now work as a photographer and am so much more fulfilled than I ever was in the tech industry. The U.S. Tech Corporations have caused their own problems by alienating their workforce. The U.S. Auto industry struggles year after year on the verge of bankruptcy because they lost an entire generation of car buyers with their shoddy vehicles in the mid-1960's through mid-1980's, and they will never regain the confidence of that generation of buyers. The tech industry has done exactly the same thing with their American workers. They have lost an entire generation of skilled American workers because of their stupidity, and they will never win them back.

Have you tried hiring a talented programmer or IT person? It's impossible. Every company in St. Louis, including my own, pounces on anyone with real talent as soon as they're available, and poaching between companies is rampant. Salaries are very high, and getting higher every month. It's not unusual here to get a 10-20% raise every year by switching jobs.

On the other hand, there is a large supply of incompetent or underskilled tech workers that aren't employable. If you're having trouble finding IT work, I suggest you take a hard look at why no one will hire you, and fix the problem. Unless you're demanding six figures, the issue is not your salary.

Is education to blame? To some extent, yes. But we're also running up against simple math. Programming is hard, only a small subset of the population can ever be good at it, regardless of our education system. We're getting close to employing 100% of that subset. Improving education can move a few people into IT, mostly ones with minimal aptitude for it. Long term the only answer is to pull in people with skill and talent from other countries, or do nothing and watch our companies leave for countries with untapped talent pools.

Okay this is Charlie Hancock again... Lets look at your information and put it up against my experience. During the dot.com bubble I earned $72,000 per year working on a web site that was a direct competitor to amazon.com. After 2001, unable to find work on my own, I signed up with several recruiting firms that test their applicant's skills. Most of them just told me I was one of the most marketable people on their list. One of the firms went further and told me that I had the highest scores on my three expertise areas that they had ever seen and I completed the tests twice as fast as anyone they had ever seen. My best job offer after that was for $18,500. There was another job offer that was for slightly more, but it would have required either moving my family to a lousy neighborhood, or driving 1 hour and 15 minutes each way every day. I did some consulting work after that, but the companies demands on my time were ludicrous for what they would pay. Their expectations included software development at bargain basement prices, but also hundreds of hours of unpaid time spent meeting with them trying to decipher their specifications from vague descriptions of the work they perform, as well as post development training events where I furnished projecting equipment, a conference center location, etc... Simply not possible. It was then that I knew it was time to move on. Conditions may have changed since then and companies may be willing to step up and treat tech workers properly, but it is far too late for me and many other techies that I keep in contact with, we have seen the big picture and moved on.