National Academies Press: OpenBook

Pan-Organizational Summit on the U.S. Science and Engineering Workforce: Meeting Summary (2003)

Chapter: Foreign Scientists Seen Essential to U.S. Biotechnology

« Previous: The Physics Educated Workforce
Suggested Citation:"Foreign Scientists Seen Essential to U.S. Biotechnology." National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine. 2003. Pan-Organizational Summit on the U.S. Science and Engineering Workforce: Meeting Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10727.
×
Page 35
Suggested Citation:"Foreign Scientists Seen Essential to U.S. Biotechnology." National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine. 2003. Pan-Organizational Summit on the U.S. Science and Engineering Workforce: Meeting Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10727.
×
Page 36

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

Stephen Dahms American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) The scarcity of skilled technicians is seen by the biotechnology indus- try in the U.S. and Canada as one of its most serious challenges. The suc- cess of this industry is dependent on the quality of its workforce, and the skills and talents of highly trained people are recognized as one of the most vital and dynamic sources of competitive advantage. The U.S. biotechnology industry workforce has been growing 14 to 17 percent annually over the last six years and is now over 190,000 and con- servatively estimated to reach 500,000 by 2012. Despite efforts by the in- dustry to encourage U.S. institutions to increase the production of needed specialists, a continual shortfall in the needed expertise requires access to foreign workers. Foreign workers with unique skills that are scarce in the U.S. can get permission to stay in the U.S. for up to six years under the H- 1B classification, after which they can apply for permanent resident sta- tus. There are currently over 600,000 foreign workers in this category across all industries, and they are critical to the success and global com- petitiveness of this nation. Of these H-1B visa horders, 46 percent are from India and 10 percent are from China, followed in descending order by Canada, Philippines, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, U.K., Pakistan, and the Rus- sian Federation. Our annual national surveys have demonstrated that between 6 and 10 percent of the biotechnology workforce have H-1B visas. The constant short- fall in specialized technical workers that has been experienced by the bio- technology industry over the past six years has been partially alleviated by access to talented individuals from other nations. However, the industry's need is sufficient to justify a 25 percent increase in H-lBs in 2004. Ire REP

PAN-~CANIZAHONAL SUMMIT Biotechnology industry H-1B visa holders are mainly in highly sought after areas such as analytical chemistry, instrumentation specialization, organic synthesis, product safety and surveillance, clinical research/bio- statistics, bio/pharm quality, medicinal chemistry, product scale-up, bioinformatics and applied genomics, computer science, cheminformatics, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics. Forty percent of H-1B foreign workers are at the Ph.D. level, 35 per- cent M.S., 20 percent B.S., and 5 percent M.D. In comparison, the U.S. biotechnology industry technical workforce is estimated to be 19 percent Ph.D., 17 percent M.S., 50 percent B.S., and 14 percent combined voc-ed/ community college trained. These and other survey data by industry hu- man resource groups clearly show that the H-1B worker skills match the most pressing employment needs of the biotechnology industry. The data demonstrate that maintaining a reasonably-sized H-1B cap is critical to the industry. Although the national annual H-1B visa cap was raised from 115,000 to 195,000 in the 106th Congress via S. 2045, the cap has already been exceeded. The increased cap remains in effect until 2003 and efforts are under way to ensure that it remains high. The Third Annual National Survey of H-lBs in the biotechnology in- dustry found that 80 percent are from U.S. universities, and 85 percent of those eventually get green cards. Companies now spend, on average, $10,200 in processing fees and legal expenses to obtain each green card, an estimated cost to the industry of more than $150 million over the past 5 years. In the wake of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, debate has been focused on more restrictions on foreign students, a development that would have a severe impact upon the competitiveness of the U.S. biotech- nology industry. Clearly, the H-1B route provides a temporary solution to shortages in the national and domestic biotechnology labor pools, short- ages mirroring the inadequate production of appropriately trained U.S. nationals by U.S. institutions of higher learning. The reality is that univer- sities have inadequate resources for expanding the training pipeline, par- ticularly in the specialized areas of the research phase of company prod- uct development. Efforts should be directed toward influencing greater congressional and federal agency attention to these important topics. The author of this article, A. Stephen Dahms, is executive director of the Califor- nia State University System Biotechnology Program (CSUPERB); chair of the Workforce Committee, Biotechnology Industry Organization; and a member of the ASBMB Education and Professional Development Committee. Statistical data are from surveys conducted by CSUPERB, as an activity of the Biotechnology Industry Organization's Workforce Committee; and for Canada, from Statistics Canada.

Next: Academic Prerequisites for Licensure and Professional Practice »
Pan-Organizational Summit on the U.S. Science and Engineering Workforce: Meeting Summary Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $59.00 Buy Ebook | $47.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

Each of 32 nonprofit organizations contributing a presentation to the Pan-Organizational Summit on the Science and Engineering Workforce (November 11-12, 2002; The National Academies, Washington, DC) was invited to issue a corresponding position paper to be reproduced in this volume. The bulk of this report comprises these papers. In addition, Shirley Jackson and Joseph Toole, two of the keynote speakers, have included their remarks.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!