A foreign-born worker would need an advanced degree in a high-tech field and a job offer paying at least $60,000 a year to qualify for a new type of immigration visa being proposed as a solution to a shortage of technology workers.

A bill introduced by Sen. Charles Robb, D-Va., would create the new immigration category for recent graduates of U.S. master's or doctoral programs in mathematics, science, engineering or computer science who currently are in the country on student visas.

Businesses would have to pay $1,000 for each visa, allowing a foreign worker to remain in the United States for five years. Extensions would cost $500 each. The money would be used to help pay for grants to improve mathematics, science and technology education in U.S. public schools.

``Our economy has grown, the number of quality jobs has increased and a new and increasingly more important form of commerce has been born,'' Robb told the Senate Judiciary Committee's immigration subcommittee during a hearing Thursday.

``But as with any burgeoning industry, there are likely to be growing pains, and the most significant one that we see now is the shortage of skilled workers to fill the nearly 350,000 vacant information technology jobs in this country,'' Robb said.

High-tech companies have been lobbying hard for Congress to allow more skilled immigrants into the country for jobs that can't be filled adequately by Americans.

In response, Congress raised the cap on ``H-1B'' visas, which are reserved for foreigners with specialized job skills, from 65,000 in fiscal 1998 to 115,000 in each of the next two years.

High-tech executives say their businesses are growing so fast that those visas no longer are enough. All for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 may be used up as early as January, they said.

``What happens when companies like mine can't hire the workers we need?'' asked Susan Williams DeFife, chief executive officer of womenCONNECT.com, an Internet site for women in business. ``We have to delay projects, and in the Internet industry where change occurs daily and competitors are springing up all around you, waiting to execute a project can be lethal.''

Skeptics warn that the government must step up efforts to make sure that companies aren't simply trying to hire foreign workers at lower salaries than they would have to pay U.S. residents.

Another bill, introduced by Republican Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, would increase the number of H-1B visas to 200,000 annually over the next three years.

Robb said he has proposed creating a new visa category because simply increasing the number of H-1Bs also would increase the number of foreign workers for industries that aren't experiencing worker shortages.

Those visas ``can be granted to anyone from bakers to occupational therapists, computer programmers to fashion models,'' he said.

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