Employers will seek to fill over 600,000 jobs for tech support personnel alone over the next 12 months, the study said. And workers with Web-related skills are the target of 13 percent of all IT hiring. IT workers account for a much bigger slice of the total workforce than previously imagined, Miller said. Employers want to hire from a global marketplace, and the people they hire want permanent residency, Donnelly said. At the same time, U.S. workers don't want their wages and working conditions undercut by newcomers.
Most foreign workers come to the United States to stay.
The solution is to bring in foreign skilled workers under a green card visa, which is underutilized, he said. Under H1-B, a company sponsors a foreign worker after advertising unsuccessfully for U.S. workers. The foreign worker comes to a U.S. company under a predetermined wage and is not free to move to another employer under the H1-B program. Such workers are, essentially, captive, Donnelly said. With a green card, the foreign worker, like American counterparts, can look for another employer and seek higher salaries.