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OCR for page 35
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.
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OCR for page 36
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.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
stephen dahms
