[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 141 (Friday, October 9, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12254-S12257]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            WORKFORCE IMPROVEMENT AND PROTECTION ACT OF 1998

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the consideration of H.R. 3736, a bill to amend the 
Immigration and Nationality Act to make changes relating to H-1B 
nonimmigrants.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. HARKIN. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I regret that this objection is being made. 
The bill is vital to the technology industry, and this objection makes 
it impossible to pass the bill this year.
  Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield for about 3 minutes?
  Mr. COATS. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
  Mr. HARKIN. I appreciate the Senator from Indiana yielding to me to 
explain why I object to this.
  Before I get into that, let me say that I was here for part of his 
speech. He thanked his staff. I thought it was a very gracious and 
wonderful thing the Senator did. It was really nice.
  I must say, I will miss you here in the Senate, Dan. As I said 
before, you have been a wonderful person to work with. I hate to end it 
on this note, where I am objecting to something that you are bringing 
up. You have been a great Senator. You have been a great human being to 
work with. We will miss you. I will miss you, personally. All of my 
friends who have left said there is a life beyond the Senate. Quite 
frankly, it is probably a lot better, considering we are here at 7:30 
on a Friday night.
  Mr. President, I just want to explain why I object to this bill. This 
is the bill

[[Page S12255]]

that would have increased the number of H-1B visas from 65,000 per year 
to 115,000 for next year and the year after, then drop down to 107,500 
in 2001 and back down to 65,000 thereafter.
  Now, ostensibly, the reason for doing this, and why this came up in 
the last couple of years, is that there was projected to be a big 
shortage in computer programmers. Thus, there was this big push to 
increase the number of H-1B visas, to get these computer programmers.
  It turns out that has, indeed, not happened. In fact, I have three 
recent articles. One is from the San Jose Mercury News dated October 6, 
1998. It says:

       High-tech Layoffs are Accelerating.

  They pointed out in the article:

       Computers ranked second in total job-cut announcements, 
     with 44,000. That represented nearly three times the number 
     from last year.

  The article goes on to say:

       The changing job market can be seen at the Career Action 
     Center, a career resource center in Cupertino, where 
     counselors are seeing more people come in. Job searches are 
     taking more time, companies are taking longer to make their 
     hiring decision, and some businesses have even enacted hiring 
     freezes, said Betsy Collard, the center's strategic 
     development director.
       While the center posted 10,000 jobs in August, that was 
     down from 13,500 it posted a year earlier.

  I ask unanimous consent the article be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the San Jose Mercury News, Oct. 6, 1998]

                   High-Tech Layoffs Are Accelerating

                        (By Jonathan Rabinovitz)

       High-technology industries have cut four times as many jobs 
     nationally in 1998 as they did in the same period last year, 
     imposing more layoffs than almost every other sector of the 
     economy, according to a report released Tuesday by an 
     international outplacement firm.
       The survey of job-cut announcements was yet another signal 
     of the slowing of economic growth both in Silicon Valley and 
     nationally. It attributed many of the reductions to the 
     global financial crisis, particularly the recession that has 
     gripped much of Asia.
       And while the labor market in the San Jose area remains 
     tight--the 3.4 percent unemployment rate in August was down 
     from last year--one of the authors of the study said that 
     this year's downsizing tend has already dimmed the rampant 
     optimism that once pervaded Silicon Valley.
       ``People used to say that you don't have anything to worry 
     about, but that's not the case any more,'' said John A. 
     Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas 
     Inc., the Chicago-based company that compiles the monthly 
     survey. ``The ice seems a little bit thinner right now.''
       Still, Silicon Valley and the state continue to add 
     thousands of jobs, at a pace that outstrips the rate of 
     layoffs, though job growth has slowed both here and 
     nationally.
       The layoffs in high-tech companies come against a backdrop 
     of increased job-cut announcements across the country. The 
     September figure for job-cut announcements was the highest 
     reported by the survey since January 1996. The amount has 
     generally increased each month this year.
       And the total number of job cuts for all industries was up 
     53 percent--about 150,000 job-cut announcements--from the 
     amount for the first nine months of 1997.
       But perhaps the most striking change was in the high-tech 
     industries. While electronics, computers and 
     telecommunications were not among the top five industries in 
     job-cut announcements last year at this time, all three 
     industries were now in that category.
       Electronics, which includes chip manufacturing, had more 
     announcements than any other industry. The number had 
     increased to nearly 70,000, eight times more than the first 
     nine months of last year, according to the Challenger survey.
       Computers ranked second in total job-cut announcements, 
     with 44,000. That represented nearly three times the number 
     from last year.
       Telecommunications was placed fifth. It increased to nearly 
     29,000, four times the amount in 1997.
       The changing job market can be seen at the Career Action 
     Center, a career resource center in Cupertino, where 
     counselors are seeing more people come in. Job searches are 
     taking more time, companies are taking longer to make their 
     hiring decision and some businesses have even enacted hiring 
     freezes, said Betsy Collard, the center's strategic 
     development director.
       While the center posted 10,000 jobs in August, that was 
     down from the 13,500 it posted a year earlier.
       But, Collard stressed, ``It is still a very good job 
     market.''
       Indeed, the Challenger survey should not inspire panic in 
     Silicon Valley. Its findings reveal only a small and recent 
     dent in an economic miracle that has included phenomenal job 
     growth.
       Another report, issued this week by the American 
     Electronics Association, showed how Silicon Valley extended 
     its reach throughout California from 1990 to 1996.
       While Santa Clara County added almost 25,000 high-tech jobs 
     during that period to reach a total of 221,000 technology 
     jobs--a 12 percent increase--other California metropolitan 
     areas had substantial employment growth in the tech 
     industries.
       The Sacramento area, for instance, had 30,000 high-tech 
     jobs by 1996, a 56 percent jump from six years earlier. San 
     Mateo, San Francisco and Marin Counties had a total of about 
     49,000 high-tech jobs, up 37 percent over the same period. 
     And Alameda and Contra Costa Counties had 53,000, a 14 
     percent increase from 1990.
       Still, the continued growth had a new facet this year, it 
     was accompanied by a spate of down-sizing efforts that 
     approach the scope of the deepest cuts of the decade in 1993, 
     Challenger said.
       Over the last year, many of Silicon Valley's most revered 
     companies have announced layoffs. Santa Clara-based Applied 
     Materials has eliminated almost one out of every four 
     positions. Scotts Valley-based Seagate said in January it 
     would reduce its work force by 10,000 employees worldwide. 
     And San Jose-based Adobe Systems said it would cut anywhere 
     between 240 to 300 jobs.
       The Challenger Survey has been conducted since 1993. It is 
     based entirely on public reports of job cuts and calculates 
     all reductions announced by U.S.-based companies.

  Mr. HARKIN. Another recent article from Computer World, dated October 
5, 1998, talked about the same subject:

       The year 2000 retention drama is playing out differently 
     from what was expected. The widely anticipated programmer 
     shortage never quite materialized, but another shortage has 
     proved far more dangerous.
       ``We'd always heard the industry speak of demand for 
     programmers, but the more critical and unexpected demand is 
     for project managers,'' says Irene Dec, vice president of 
     information systems at the Prudential Insurance Company of 
     America in Newark, NJ.

  The article pointed out, quite frankly, that the programmers are in 
fine shape. What they are really looking for are program managers. I 
understand the H-1B visa does not in any way address that problem at 
all.
  I ask unanimous consent this article also be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   [From Computerworld, Oct. 5, 1998]

                      The Millennium's Superstars


 year 2000 project managers are worth their weight in gold. how do you 
                               keep them?

                         (By Kathleen Melymuka)

       The year 2000 retention drama is playing out differently 
     from what was expected. The widely anticipated programmer 
     shortage never quite materialized, but another shortage has 
     proved far more dangerous.
       ``We'd always heard the industry speak of demand for 
     programmers, but the more critical and unexpected demand is 
     for project managers,'' says Irene Dec, vice president of 
     information systems at The Prudential Insurance Company of 
     America in Newark, N.J.
       ``Those are the people that make the different between 
     success and failure,'' says Chas Snyder, who heads the year 
     2000 project at Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco. ``If 
     somebody is experienced at running an effort like this for a 
     large company, the knowledge they develop is invaluable.''
       Keeping programmers ``has not been as big a problem as 
     people thought it was going to be,'' says Jim Jones, managing 
     director of the year 2000 group at the Information Management 
     Forum in Atlanta. ``It's not the worker-bee folks they're 
     hurting for; it's project managers.''
       An August survey of 100 contracting and consulting firms by 
     the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) 
     showed that the ``overwhelming majority'' have more 
     programmers than they can use. The ITAA called the 
     anticipated programmer shortage ``a marketplace failing to 
     live up to its prior billing.''
       The supply of year 2000 programmers has been bigger than 
     expected because many corporations outsourced coding to 
     offshore companies, vendors developed year 2000 tools that 
     automated much of the coding process, and schools and 
     training facilities graduated a bumper crop of programmers 
     geared to the job.
       With programmers available, companies realized where the 
     real crunch would be. ``Even the best programmers in the 
     world can't make it happen if no one is managing,'' Dec says.
       Depending on the organization, year 2000 project managers 
     may be found at every level--and every salary--from corporate 
     vice presidents through division managers, business 
     functional team leaders and department honchos. There may be 
     one project manager, or there may be a pyramid of project 
     managers--from each division or business unit, for example--
     reporting to a chief. But wherever they are found, they are 
     hard to keep. ``We know that our people are being called [by 
     headhunters] because they tell us,'' says

[[Page S12256]]

     Gael Hanover, senior director of human resources for 
     information systems at Sears. Roebuck and Co. in Hoffman 
     Estates, Ill. ``Consulting firms can dangle pretty big 
     salaries, and we can't.''
       In fact, some consulting firms are so desperate for project 
     managers that they are willing to pay them at the rate they 
     bill customers for their services. ``The projects can't get 
     done without project managers, so if they bill [companies] at 
     $125 an hour, they're willing to give [project managers] $125 
     an hour,'' Jones says. ``No corporation can do that.''
       But corporations have come up with other strategies to keep 
     their year 2000 project managers on the job through the 
     millennium. Some strategies rely on the lure of money and 
     perks, but most are based on the understanding that retention 
     has to be a long-term effort because the need for project 
     managers won't go away after 2000.


                        RECOGNITION AND ROTATION

       At Kraft Foods, Inc. in Northfield, Ill., where the overall 
     IS turnover rate is 5%, Chief Information Officer Jim Kinney 
     has been very careful to make year 2000 a high-profile, high-
     recognition temporary job. ``We've chosen very good people 
     for project teams,'' he says. Most work only on the 
     application set for which they're normally responsible. 
     ``Once that's finished, they rotate back to their regular 
     assignment,'' Kinney explains.
       Smart companies are making sure their year 2000 project 
     managers don't stagnate during the project. ``Folks focused 
     on year 2000 are being sent to appropriate training and 
     conferences and classes so they can stay up with 
     technology,'' Dec says. She has lost only five of the 60 to 
     80 people in her year 2000 program management team.
       Keane, Inc. in Boston, a provider of year 2000 services, 
     has established an internal organization to look after the 
     career development of its project managers, says David 
     Pollard, Keane's director of recruiting.
       ``Rather than simply throw cash at the issue, we tapped 
     into meeting their development objectives and getting [them] 
     the right training so they can be successful in the long 
     haul,'' he says. Turnover has declined 30% since the 
     development organization was founded last year.


                                 MONEY

       There's nothing wrong with money judiciously deployed, and 
     bonuses of 20% of salary aren't uncommon. Sears is offering 
     year 2000 project managers and selected other periodic cash 
     bonuses through April 2000.
       ``If we lost one of these folks, we would be hurting more 
     than if we lost 10 other people. So rather than spread [the 
     money] to everyone, we do more for some,'' Hanauer says.


                              BE PREPARED

       Nothing can guarantee that you will retain the people 
     crucial to your year 2000 effort. Knowing that, Snyder 
     planned for the worst. ``My biggest fear was to lose people 
     in high leverage points,'' he says. ``So for my core four or 
     five managers, I designed responsibilities to be shared. That 
     way, if I lost one, we could cover the responsibility 
     easily.''
       He did lose one, he says, ``but we were able to pick up the 
     slack running.''


                            the BIG PICTURE

       Unlike year 2000 programmers, who know their peak earning 
     time is limited, project managers have the luxury of a long 
     view. If your company's view is the same, you have an 
     advantage. ``Year 2000 is a short-term brass ring,'' Snyder 
     says. ``There might be enough in a year or two to make it 
     worthwhile for some people to leave, but if you're thinking 
     long term, it's not enough. The people I have are long-term 
     Levi's employees, and they plan on staying here.''

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I think this bill, at the time it came up, 
was probably well intentioned.
  Another article I want to have printed in the Record is an article 
from Labor Relations Week, dated September 30, 1998:

       The latest data from the Challenger report showed that so 
     far this year, electronics industry job reductions 
     announcements have totaled 60,845, and those in the computer 
     industry totaled 40,642.

  I ask unanimous consent this article be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From Labor Relations Week, Sept. 30, 1998]

   Layoff Reports Outpacing Level Seen Last Year; High-Tech Hit Hard

       With high-technology industries particularly hard hit, the 
     pace at which U.S. corporations are announcing workforce 
     reductions remained brisk through August, according to the 
     latest figures from the international outplacement firm 
     Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
       In August, U.S. companies announced that they plan to make 
     job cuts totaling 37,717, the Challenger report, released 
     Sept. 8, said. That figure, while it was smaller than 
     reported in July, put the total for the first eight months of 
     this year at 358,394--which is 37 percent higher than the 
     total for the comparable period of 1997.
       In fact, the January-to-August total for this year is only 
     11 percent lower than the total reported by Challenger for 
     the same period in 1993, the year that the firm began its 
     layoff survey.
       ``There have been a significant number of downsizing 
     announcements in 1998, reflecting a number of factors that 
     include the global situation, especially in Asia.'' John 
     Challenger, executive vice president of the firm, told BNA. 
     He said that given the increased pressure on some U.S. 
     industries due to the Asian economic crisis, there are likely 
     to be more layoff announcements in the industries most 
     affected.
       The latest data from the Challenger report showed that so 
     far this year, electronics industry job reductions 
     announcements have totaled 60,845, and those in the computer 
     industry totaled 40,642.
       ``We've seen the 10 largest mergers in [U.S.] history all 
     announced since last fall,'' Challenger said, citing another 
     indication of labor market flux. In many cases, companies are 
     reducing their workforces in one area at the same time that 
     they are adding employees in other areas, he said.
       While Challenger said that he does not expect 1998 to 
     surpass 1993 in total layoff announcements, he said that the 
     fact that the total for the first eight months of this year 
     is so close to 1993 total indicates that ``companies are 
     quicker to respond to changes in the marketplace.''
       Layoff announcements tracked by the Challenger firm are 
     based on publicly released estimates of planned workforce 
     reductions that could take place immediately or over an 
     extended period of time, the firm said. Announcements of job 
     reduction plans are verified by the Challenger firm, and the 
     tallies are revised only if companies announce that they have 
     changed their plans, the firm said.

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I object because I think while this maybe 
had some legitimacy at some time because of the projected shortage in 
computer programmers, every indication is that has not happened.
  Obviously, we don't need to pass this bill right now. I think we can 
take another look at it next year to see if, in fact, there is any 
problem. We can always come back and look at this again next year, but 
right now it does not appear that the demand is there that they 
anticipated a couple of years ago.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, first of all, I thank the Senator from Iowa 
for his kind comments. We have served together in the Labor Committee 
for a 10-year period of time. While we have had our disagreements, we 
have also agreed on a number of things. I have enjoyed working with 
him.
  I understand, but regret, the objection of this unanimous consent 
request. There obviously is a difference of opinion as to the need for 
support in the technology industry, the computer industry, particularly 
with the Y2K problem. That issue will have to be resolved. There is 
honest disagreement here. We will pick the issue up in the next 
Congress.
  Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I would like to turn my attention briefly 
to the issue which was discussed by the Senator from Iowa in raising 
objection to proceeding with the legislation aimed at trying to expand 
the number of H-1B entries as permitted on an annual basis to be 
employed by American businesses.
  The Senator focused on a very narrow issue in raising his objection--
specifically, the argument based on several newspaper stories that 
there is not a shortage of skilled workers in the high-tech industries.
  Virtually every study that I have seen--and as the principal sponsor 
of the legislation when it was in the Senate, I made most of those 
available as part of the Record--indicates that, indeed, we have a very 
severe shortage in these high-tech worker job slots. Virginia Tech 
University conducted a recent study which indicated over 340,000 
vacancies in information technology positions that exist today in this 
country. Our Department of Commerce conducted a study which revealed it 
is anticipated that in each of the next 10 years we will generate over 
130,000 new information technology jobs and yet the combined resources 
of our colleges, universities, and job training programs and high 
schools is only likely to fill a fraction of those every year. This is 
a severe problem, and it is especially severe at this time.
  The Senator from Iowa talks about moving us to next year. Well, next 
year just happens to be the last few months prior to the year 2000. By 
the time this legislation might be brought back before us, we will be 
in a situation where the Federal Government as well as the companies 
from one end of America to the other are going to be confronted with 
the final crisis stages of trying to prepare our high-tech systems for 
the Year 2K problems that we have all been raving so much about.

[[Page S12257]]

  If we do not pass this legislation, it is going to be Senators such 
as the Senator who raised this objection and others who have impeded 
the progress in this legislation who are going to have to explain to 
all of those whose systems break down why it is that happened, because 
one of the problems we are having confronting the Year 2K problems is 
an inadequate number of people to perform all of the various 
information technology jobs required to be conducted for those problems 
to be fixed. That is just one aspect of it. It is late in the evening 
so I am not going to go into all of the many others, but I think that 
any study that has been conducted by serious researchers reveals that 
there not only exists, but will continue to be, an ever larger number 
of vacancies in this area.
  This legislation that was stopped tonight not only covers increasing 
the number of high-tech workers, it also is a very important piece of 
legislation to our academic institutions--in two respects. First, 
regarding many of the high-tech jobs, many of the H-1B visa users are 
in fact employed on our campuses teaching American kids how to perform 
these high-technology jobs so we can meet the demand in this area in 
the future. If we do not have these scientists, these educators, we are 
going to continue to fail to meet the challenge.
  In addition, our academic institutions were relying on the passage of 
this legislation to address a very serious problem created by the 
Hathaway decision with regard to the prevailing wage they must pay 
people who come in under the H-1B Program. So this does not just affect 
the private sector, it affects our academic institutions as well.
  In addition, the Senator from Iowa and others who question the 
problem do not need to just listen to people on our side of the aisle. 
They can listen to the President of the United States who, I believe 
just 2 weeks ago this evening, was in Silicon Valley in California 
before a group of executives from the high-tech industries there 
talking about this issue. The day after his staff and my staff and I 
reached agreement on the legislation that has been blocked this 
evening, he took credit for the ability, that we were then apparently 
going to have, to move forward to it and acknowledged the need for the 
legislation in taking credit for the settlement and agreement we had 
reached.
  Obviously, whether it is the White House, the Department of Commerce, 
Virginia Tech University, or any one of a number of other sources, 
there is an acknowledged existence of a problem here that has to be 
addressed. I am extremely disappointed at what has transpired this 
evening.
  I would just say, in conclusion, we have not, obviously, reached the 
end of this session. There is still some time, hopefully, for 
reconsideration by the Senator from Iowa and any others who may have 
concerns. I hope they will rethink this. I hope they will realize, in 
undermining this legislation, in stopping it at this time, they are 
going to be hurting not just the business sector and the information 
technology sector, but the academic sector. They are also going to 
prevent us from instituting a whole new array of job training programs 
and scholarship programs that were going to be launched by this 
legislation. So I hope they will take a look at that, reconsider, and 
if they look at the numbers a little more closely, I think they will 
reach the same conclusions we have.
  Mr. President, I close by saying I hope the Senator from Iowa, and 
others who might share his position, again will look closely at the 
statistics I have talked about tonight, examine all the other aspects 
of this legislation and what it will mean if it does not move forward 
in all the different contexts I have outlined and the many others I 
have not had time for, rethink whether or not it is appropriate to put 
this off to some future date, and think about the consequences, whether 
it is in the context of the Y2K problems or the current economic 
conditions we have in the world marketplace where America's high-tech 
industries' growth is essential to the maintenance of our economic 
strength, and reconsider their position.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________