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The Salt Lake City area may be way down the list of U.S. cities in its demand for H1-B visas but that doesn't mean businesses here are happy with the current cap on the number of foreign workers who can fill high-skills positions.
The Brookings Institution said this week that the biggest appetite for the highly prized visas was in the New York metropolitan area during the 2010-2011 period, followed by Los Angeles; San Francisco; San Jose, Calif.; and Washington, D.C.
Salt Lake City was No. 49 among 106 U.S. metropolitan areas. Provo was further down, at No. 104, according to the organization's report on the geographic distribution of visa requests.
The government's H1-B visa program allows employers to hire foreigners to work in specialty occupations on a temporary basis. Visas are granted in three-year increments with the option to extend up to six years. Companies that want H1-B workers are usually information technology, consulting and electronics manufacturing. The annual cap is 65,000 visas.
Employers in the New York region sought almost 53,000 H1-B visas over the period, according to Brookings. Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Chicago and the nation's capital each had more than 14,000 visa applications.
By contrast, 909 requests for visas came from Salt Lake City. Another 257 originated in Provo.
Richard Nelson, CEO of the Utah Technology Council, said there isn't a shortage of H1-B visas. On the other hand, hundreds of high-tech jobs go unfilled along the Wasatch Front because employers can't find enough qualified applicants. Loosening the annual limitation would help fill those jobs by enlarging the pool of possible applicants, Nelson said.
"It's been a long-term priority for our industry nationally, [and] especially here in Utah, where it's such a hot market for software developers and engineers," he said.
There are close to 7,000 technology companies in Utah, according to the Utah Technology Council. In December, the group sampled 78 members of the group about their current openings for software developers and engineers that require at least an undergraduate degree. The members also were asked about expected openings in the next 12 months. Respondents said they had 432 unfilled jobs and hoped to hire another 1,600 by the end of 2012.
"What [the survey] shows is an overwhelming shortage of talent," Nelson said. "How do you continue to fuel the growth of our companies when there's such a shortage of talent?"
Part of the answer, he said, is to increase the number H1-B visas, which isn't likely to happen soon because the discussion over where the cap should be is tied up in the wider debate over immigration.
"It's such an obvious priority for our country and our state. Seven thousand tech companies are being held hostage because of the immigration debate," Nelson said.
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Top 10 cities where demand was strongest for H1-B work visas in 2010-2011
1. New York area, 52,921 requests
2. Los Angeles, 18,048
3. San Francisco, 16,333
4. San Jose, 14,926
5. Washington D.C., 14,569
6. Chicago, 14,011
7. Boston, 11,541
8. Dallas-Fort Worth, 10,651
9. Houston, 10,107
10. Philadelphia, 8,875
49. Salt Lake City, 909
104. Provo, 257