Mercer Management is a consulting firm that operates an information technology (IT) center to bring greater efficiencies to other businesses and thereby help those companies cut costs. In Mercer’s IT center, the firm employs a number of noncitizen temporary programmers with specialized skills, mostly recruited from India.

Do federal immigration laws limit Mercer’s hiring practices? Yes. U.S. immigration laws include provisions for businesses to hire ______________ workers with ______________ qualifications. But these laws also place limits on the practice. For instance, the Immigration Act caps the number of ______________ that the federal government issues each year. Employers, such as Mercer, that recruit workers from other countries must show the U.S. Department of Labor that there is a shortage of qualified ______________ workers who can perform the work. An employer must also show that bringing the workers into the United States will not adversely affect the existing labor market in the employer’s area.