There are few things more controversial in the world of IT HR than the H1B foreign-worker visa program. CIOs, as a rule, are fans; the ability to hire from an increasingly large pool of eager and well-educated foreign workers to fill domestic jobs helps ease the pay scale. Industry leaders as illustrious as Bill Gates have gone before Congress to testify in support of the program, which many consider as vital to staffing their companies competetively. American IT workers, on the other hand, view H1B participants as threats to their positions and as interlopers driving down their wages. Of late, the protectionist sentiment seems to be on the rise, not least in response to the belt-tightening that the recession has engendered on both the corporate and individual levels.

But if American IT workers feel that they are winning the battle to reclaim domestic technology jobs, they may be losing the war by inadvertently driving talent away from American tech companies and into foreign firms and startups, according to this Investors.com article.

The problem is an outgrowth of a larger one, which is the US education system as a whole. US citizens comprise less than half of the technology and engineering doctorates awarded in the US each year. Of the larger foreign contingent, many already plan to return home after graduation, taking their skills and expertise learned here along with them. The fewer opportunities for employment here, the more foreign graduates will be leaving. Just because they are out of the country, though, does not mean they are magically out of what is, after all, a global industry. If there is a phenomena that is near and dear to protectionist hearts after the H1B program, it is the growing trend toward offshoring. Many of the firms serving that trend are well-staffed with American-educated students.

The Investor.com article cites concerns over competetiveness and attempts to tie them to H1B caps and restraints. Dissenters might point out that the companies which are providing these numbers have every incentive to lay their problems at the feet of employees who are demanding higher wages rather than pay up; such has been a historic reaction to any sort of worker or wage protection efforts. On the other hand, it's difficult not to see the very real effects of globalization as they have effected other industries, and to imagine they would not apply to technology would be disingenous. If anything, the tech sector is even more vulnerable to the phenomena than the manufacturing and service sectors.

The choice for American workers may be between low wages resulting from a competetive domestic job market, or fewer domestic positions entirely as the business moves inexorably to countries which can provide it more efficiently.