WASHINGTON — Electronics industry organizations, professional associations and academic institutions will gather at a National Academies summit next month to discuss U.S. science and technology work force issues such as the pending shortage of technical talent, but critics say the meeting will overlook the more pressing issue of rising engineering unemployment.

Bill Reed, president of the American Engineering Association (Fort Worth, Texas), said a focus on technical shortages could drown out discussion of issues like joblessness and the impact of H-1B visa holders on U.S. engineers.

"The way they have set this thing up, the conclusion to be drawn from the conference is predetermined," said Reed, whose group was not among the 32 invited to speak at the National Academies conference, scheduled for Nov. 11-12. Reed said his group is more focused on labor issues than traditional scientific and engineering societies.

Fifty members of Congress involved in appropriating and authorizing funding related to science and engineering have also been invited to the summit, where speakers will provide 15-minute presentations on work force and education issues. Invited organizations have been asked to present position papers and to provide government policy recommendations.

The summit is intended to focus Congressional and community attention on work force issues, facilitate the exchange of information between the invited groups and elevate the visibility of the work being done on these issues, said Merrilea Mayo, director of the Government University Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR), a summit organizer.

"We want to demonstrate this issue is of strong interest, gather all the thoughts and positions of the different groups and find commonalities to form a political agenda, and get the community used to the idea of working together on this issue," she said.

GUIRR counts university presidents, corporate executives and federal science agency leaders as members.

Rampant shortage?

Concerns about a shortage of technical talent will be discussed at the summit. A report released by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) in September showed a softening demand for IT workers since the beginning of 2002. ITAA president Harris N. Miller said he was concerned that "a sluggish job market could turn off many prospective IT and computer science students, resulting in rampant IT talent shortage a few years down the road." ITAA is a participant in the November summit.

IEEE-USA, an association of professional electronics engineers whose president and president-elect will address the GUIRR summit, has also worried that the currently gloomy labor market for engineers might drive students away from engineering studies.

IEEE-USA is preparing a position paper that will pay particular attention on rising unemployment among EEs and how foreign workers with H-1B visas and offshore outsourcing contribute to that trend. The association's paper will also discuss engineer retraining.

Like the American Engineering Association, the IEEE-USA is concerned that its message will not be heard above the cries of science and engineering shortages.

GUIRR plans to summarize the points of agreement and disagreement of the summit's various position papers and then make policy recommendations to Congress.