Shadegg Introduces ‘Skil Bill’ To Keep American Workforce Competitive
Rep. Shadegg – “We stand to potentially lose the next technological giants like Yahoo! or Google if we do not keep America’s workforce competitive.”
Washington,
Jun 30, 2006 -
As the United States works to maintain its economic competitive edge, U.S. Representative John Shadegg (R-AZ) introduced legislation yesterday to help retain the innovative minds of foreign-born nationals here in the United States.
“We have benefited greatly from the many foreign-born scientists, engineers, health care professionals, and teachers that help keep America moving forward,” said Shadegg, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “To our detriment, current policy mandates that we educate and train these brilliant individuals and then send them away to other countries to compete against us.”
H.R. 5744, The Securing Knowledge, Innovation, and Leadership (SKIL) Act, addresses this growing problem by increasing the allotment of H-1B visas, returning to the prior, higher level of 115,000, with potential for future increases. The bill would also allow foreign nationals who graduate from U.S. universities to stay in America and contribute to our economy by joining the American workforce.
“Unfortunately, we are not graduating the number of Americans with advanced degrees in math and sciences that our high tech and medical industries need to compete. Until we can fix the problem of not having enough highly skilled American graduates, we need to pass the SKIL Bill.”
Shadegg went on to say, “We stand to potentially lose the next technological giants like Yahoo! or Google if we do not keep America’s workforce competitive. We must maintain our edge by providing opportunities to highly educated and skilled individuals interested in staying here in the U.S.”
In 2005, foreign nationals earned more than 40 percent of the master’s degrees and 60 percent of the doctorate degrees in engineering awarded by U.S. universities.
