US gets a sinking feeling over brain ...

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Author Message   Mustt_mustt Citizen Username: Mustt_mustt Post Number: 285 Registered: 8-2003 Posted on Friday, February 18, 2005 - 8:27 pm:        I thought some folks in this online community of ours would be interested in reading the article that I have pasted below. As I pointed our several threads ago, India's techno elite's response to the re-election of Bush has been very postiive because of the massive outsourcing of jobs that is presently underway. But acc. to the article, problems still persist for the US and that said, Europe is trying very hard attract software workers in order to remain in the fray. Read on.... US gets a sinking feeling over brain-drain TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2005 11:19:03 PM ] www.timesofindia.com NEW DELHI: Bring those foreign scientists and engineers back! The plea from the US high-tech industry to the US government is simple: keep the bright Indians, Chinese and others coming into the US, because they hold the key to the US' economic and technological dominance. In a latest report, the AeA (formerly known as The American Electronics Association and now the biggest lobbying body for high-tech industry) said the US risked losing its competitive edge in science and technology for a number of reasons, but primarily because the tighter immigration policies post-9/11 were keeping away the ones that the US needs the most: the best and the brightest. "Immigration policy post-9/11 has deterred foreign nationals from coming to the US to study or work. They are choosing to go elsewhere and we lose when this happens." An additional problem pointed out by the AeA — which spells good news for aspiring Indian migrants to the US — is the US' distinctly aging population as compared to India. In 2002, there were 4.4 people in the working age (25-64) for every retired person (65+); by 2025, this is likely to drop to 2.7. The organisation predicts the US would need 110 million more 25-64 year-olds. The AeA report continues. "One out of five scientists and engineers in the US are foreign born. We cannot afford to lose their intellectual abilities, innovations, and ultimately, the hundreds of thousands of jobs they create." India comes in for detailed discussion, because the AeA reckons that India's economic and tech growth is now luring back highly skilled Indians back into India. This is "turning America's brain drain into India's brain gain." There are clear signs that the US is beginning to get worried. According to the report, in 2004 foreign applications to US graduate engineering programmes plummeted 36%. India and China, the AeA says, are catching up fast in crucial tech sectors. In India, a recent milestone in the high-tech industry sector happened only last week when Boeing tied up with HCL Technologies to build software for Boeing's new aircraft 787 Dreamliner. The report says: "Public-private partnerships (in India) have invested in technical universities and communications infrastructure to create cutting-edge technology parks in places like Bangalore."   chocoholic Citizen Username: Shrink Post Number: 261 Registered: 2-2003 Posted on Sunday, February 20, 2005 - 9:46 pm:        Perhaps the US should spend more effort in training the best and the brightest that are here. There is very little emphasis on the sciences in the US educational system. Students get more encouragement to go into Wall Street careers than science. I'm trying to figure out when Americans became so full of self -loathing that they decided that Indians and Chinese were more worthy of scientific training than US citizens.   Innisowen Citizen Username: Innisowen Post Number: 462 Registered: 3-2004 Posted on Sunday, February 20, 2005 - 9:58 pm:        Even if we accepted all the sought-after Chinese and Indian technologists and mathematicians, we would still have a significant shortfall of skilled workers facing us, as the baby boomers (all 76 Million of us, turning 50 at the rate of 11,000 a day)move towards retirement and/or scale back their involvement in the workforce. The other side of that is that many of the boomers are not being replaced: their jobs are being eliminated or off-shored. We really need a strategy to think this one through and implement a solution. I don't think we have the attention span to do it--- it's too hard and it doesn't provide enough exciting fodder for the news media.