Worker shortage predicted

WASHINGTON — The United States faces a severe worker shortage in the near future, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday in advocating better education for Americans and changes in immigration law to allow in more foreign workers.

Chamber President and CEO Thomas Donohue, at a news conference outlining business prospects in 2006, said the country is ill-prepared to deal with the impending retirement of 77 million baby boomers.

“We have yet to secure an adequate supply of working taxpayers to run a growing economy and support an explosion of retirees,” he said in his organization’s report on the state of U.S. business.

Donohue said that working to pass new immigration law that includes a guest worker program will be among the Chamber’s top legislative priorities in the new year. He said the Chamber opposed a bill passed by the House in December, which tightens border security and requires employers to verify the legal status of workers but does not address the guest worker issue.

He dismissed as a “crummy argument” criticisms that the business community wants a guest worker program to secure access to cheap labor. “What American companies want is labor, and we are going to be significantly without it,” Donohue said.

The Senate is expected to take up the immigration issue next month.