Increased US work visas for highly educated-Romney, Tech firms

United States, 28th August: The US needs to issue increased number of US work visas to highly educated professionals if it wants to expedite the restoration of US economy.

This has been claimed by Mitt Romney who is a GOP presidential nominee.

Issue more US work visas—create new jobs--Romney stated in the National Republican Platform on providing more US work visas to foreign professionals with advanced degrees in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

Such a step can be of great help in creation of new jobs and services in the US, cited Romney. It is vital to speed up the restoration process of US economy, he adds.

The US must encourage inventors and innovators from the world to come and stay in the US permanently, maintained Romney.

Raise annual US work visa quota—Tech firms--The issue of increasing annual quota for US work visas to highly educated foreign professionals has been emphasized for quite long by majority of tech firms in the US.

According to findings of a study undertaken last month by a Brookings Institution, the percentage of engineering bachelor’s degrees earned in the US has come down to just around 4 percent while nearly 50 percent of such degrees are being earned by individuals in Asia.

And the US is struggling to cope up with looming shortage of skilled workforce while Asia is having an abundant number of people with engineering degrees.

A solution to the woes experienced by some of the big names in the US tech industry including Google, Intel, IBM is reforming US immigration norms to allow more and more foreign talent to study in the US and stay here by making their careers in the US.

Reforms needed in US immigration policy--As of now, US immigration policies make it mandatory for foreign talented students pursuing their degrees in STEM to move back after expiry of their tenure in the US.

But, this is proving disastrous for the US economy since such talented individuals can help in creation of numerous jobs in the US every year, admits a fellow at Stanford University, Vivek Wadhwa.

A point worth notable here is that more than half of US startups in Silicon Valley are the brain-child of immigrants. Hence, the US must not lose out on talented foreign individuals, affirms Wadhwa.