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IN BUSINESS IMMIGRATION REPORT ARGUES FOR INCREASED VISAS FOR HIGH-SKILLED LABOR By Tovin Lapan staff writer T tic labor alone. he U.S. economy is being held back because Congress has not made adjust- ments to a cap on visas for highly skilled workers in eight years, according to an- alysts from the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. The study found that employers want more temporary work visas, known as H-1B, stymieing their efforts to hire foreign nationals than the government allocates, for highly skilled, hard-to- fill jobs. Furthermore, the distribution of the visas and the ensuing visa fees, which pay for workforce training pro- grams, do not correlate to the areas where the greatest demand is found. Las Vegas ranked in the top 100 met- ro areas in requests for the temporary work visa and, much like the others, does not receive its share of job-training money for similar high-skilled jobs. During the 2010-2011 fiscal year, there were more than 300,000 requests for H-1B visas, a program that is capped an- nually at 85,000. The temporary work visa typically is issued to well-educated workers in areas of high demand such as computer sciences or engineering. "Congress must increase its respon- siveness to fluctuations in H-1B visa de- mand," Brookings analyst Neil Ruiz, one of the report's authors, said. "Demand far outstripped supply in the late 1990s, and by the time Congress acted in 2001, the dot-com bubble had already burst." Employers say they need a robust sup- ply of graduates in the so-called "STEM" fields — science, technology, engineer- ing and mathematics — and there are not enough U.S. citizen degree holders in those fields. The Brookings report found that 64 percent of all H-1B visa requests are for STEM positions and approximately half of all STEM degrees earned from U.S. institutions go to foreign nationals. "The pipeline is desperately short of the type of workers that we need," said Bill Kamela, senior director of edu- cation and workforce for Microsoft. "Washington state has the fourth-most STEM jobs and the fourth-least STEM graduates." The cap for H-1B visas, a program that started in 1990, stands at 65,000. There are an extra 20,000 visas for foreign na- tionals who graduate from a U.S. institu- tion with a master's degree or doctorate. Nonprofit organizations and institu- tions of higher learning are not subject to a cap, but those organizations make up 10 percent of all requests. Out of the 106 metro areas fully ana- lyzed by Brookings, Las Vegas ranked | 30 JULY 2012 | Experience the City National Diff erence. Call (702) 425-6559 or visit cnb.com to fi nd a business banker near you. "City National is key to our success. " We needed to expand, and I'd always heard how diffi cult it was to get a loan through the SBA. But City National walked us through the whole thing. Th ey were able to deal with the SBA using information they already had from us, and we got approval quickly. City National made the process absolutely simple. City National is Th e way up® for our business. Eric Rauch President & CEO, Ametherm, Inc. Mehdi Samii Vice President of Engineering, Ametherm, Inc. Hear Ametherm's complete story at cnb.com/thewayup. 52nd, with 780 requests for H-1B visas in 2010-11. Of all requests from the Las Ve- gas area, 34 percent involved computer science-related positions. The Las Vegas metro area ranks 70th in per-capita grant money received from the H-1B program. Bally Technologies, which designs gaming technology and computer pro- grams, employs H-1B visa holders but would not say how many. The company says U.S. citizens and Nevada residents take precedent, but they cannot meet their needs on domes- States," "We have 209 jobs open in the United company spokesman Mike Trask said. "About 75 percent are what we consider high-tech jobs, and frankly it's tough to find people who have this special skill set here in Las Vegas." SM City National Business Banking Member FDIC 7 ©2012 City National Bank