U.S. needs more immigrants or remote jobs will be off-shored: tech industry

The tech industry is lobbying Washington for more skilled-worker visas, arguing that the rise of remote work during the pandemic will lead to the offshoring of tech jobs, especially to Canada.

Remote jobs in tech jumped a whopping 420% between Jan. 2020 and Apr. 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, reports Tecna, a trade group for regional tech councils.

“The level of remote tech positions that are open is drastically higher than it was prepandemic,” Jennifer Grundy Young, Tecna’s chief executive officer, told The Wall Street Journal.

“That means workers can live anywhere in the U.S., but it also unfortunately opens the door to more outsourcing—workers staying in India, in China, or moving to places like Canada that have more flexible immigration policies.”

The labor market for tech workers is incredibly tight, about 1.3%, or one-third of the national employment rate.

The U.S. allows 65,000 skilled-worker visas annually under its H1-B program, plus another 20,000 for people who hold graduate degrees from American universities – numbers that held since 2005, reports WSJ.

Canadian cities like Toronto have become an attractive alternative, as the country has no cap on visa for immigrating tech workers and entrepreneurs. Firms have even formed to help match U.S. tech companies with foreign workers it then relocates to Canada, like MobSquad.

“There was some hesitation before the pandemic to having workers spread across many offices and cities,” said Arif Khimani, Mobsquad’s president and chief operating officer, who added that business has quadrupled since the pandemic began.

“Now they’ve proven to themselves that remote work isn’t a problem.”

Members of Congress have also raised alarms about the skill-worker visa shortage, like Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), whose district includes Silicon Valley.

“Ultimately, this could hurt the U.S. economy. There’s no rule that Silicon Valley is always going to have the tech crown,” Lofgren, who is also chairwoman of the House Immigration and Citizenship Subcommitee, told WSJ.

The skilled-immigration debate has been overshadowed in recent years by border policy, illegal immigration and refugee resettlement. Republicans tend to focus on training U.S. workers instead of relying on immigrants.

“This Congress has made very clear, both through its actions and its inaction, that it places Americans last and it places foreign labor and the big corporations that shamelessly exploit it first,” Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), ranking Republican of the immigration subcommittee, at a hearing Jul. 2021 about how high-skilled workers were flocking to Canada.

Tecna’s Grundy Young hopes the tech industry’s labor issues will get more attention if reframed as a workforce issue rather than an immigration issue. She says tech jobs have shifted during the pandemic from large hubs like Silicon Valley and New York City to smaller ones like Nashville and Austin.

Even with record growth, the Nashville regional technology council says there are about 15,000 open industry positions and worries local companies will turn to Canada.

“The rising need for tech talent is overshadowing the incoming number of tech workers,” said Elise Cambournac, chief executive officer of the Nashville Technology Council.