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 Date:10/30/2009 World News |
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America’s Got Talent? Migration Policy Institute’s Demetrios G. Papademetriou tells how the U.S. could be left in the dust as more countries compete for skilled workers. 
Governments in many advanced industrial economies have been experimenting widely with policies to let firms hire and retain more efficiently talented workers from abroad. Last year, for example, Canada followed in the footsteps of the United States and Australia in offering opportunities for permanent residence to immigrants on temporary work visas – thus acknowledging the value of locally gained work experience. And Sweden and Norway opened their economies to skilled immigration in the teeth of the recession. For several years now, Australia has been aggressively courting international students in order to build up its skilled workforce by offering a quick path to legal permanent residence. (Former students now make up over half of the country’s skilled immigrant applications). Most other advanced countries have followed suit. Meanwhile, Singapore continues to tout itself as the “talent capital” of the world while Australia, Canada and New Zealand have been actively marketing themselves as top immigrant destinations by sponsoring job fairs abroad. Even the European Union has dipped its toes in the global talent waters with a “blue card” visa which, when implemented in about three years, promises to facilitate skilled third-country nationals’ movement between EU member states. And rich countries are not alone in positioning themselves to attract global talent. Emerging economies have been very active in efforts to lure their expats home. China has built job centers for educated returnees and offers the best of them access to well-funded laboratories and elite academic organizations. India also is trying to entice its nationals back to high-tech industrial centers. And research clusters throughout East Asia are growing in large part due to returning highly skilled expats and the decisions of many global firms to diversify their R&D capabilities by moving to concentrated pools of talent. The most talented workers increasingly will have a choice of destination and the “immigration package” (or in the case of expats, the relocation package) a country offers matters a great deal. The means to an end Recruiting and retaining talented foreigners to fill jobs natives can’t has been a policy preoccupation in advanced economies for almost a decade now and the economic crisis does not seem to have dented that quest much – even if the numbers of skilled foreign workers sought by industry are down. The reason is simple: Talent lies at the heart of economic competitiveness, driving successful companies and fostering innovation. Industry’s ever-growing interest in talent irrespective of location or nationality has been matched by the growth of a global class of professionals, scientists, engineers and technologists keen to seek out the best opportunities, wherever offered. Yet, despite rhetorical flourishes about a “race” or “war” for talent, one does not see the kind of evidence that commonly accompanies scarcity: bidding up the price for skilled workers other than the truly talented. For the rest, the supply seems to be more than adequate to meet demand. Nonetheless, demand has been high and will grow again once the recession is over, a reflection of several mutually reinforcing trends:
U.S. can’t rest on its laurels Where is the United States in this current immigration environment? Almost nowhere. While other countries have been innovating and experimenting, the United States has continued to rely on a 20-year-old system and rest on its traditional attractiveness. The U.S. visa system does the nation and its corporate citizens few favors. Obtaining a green card is an opaque, long and arduous process for employers and employees alike. For most, almost a decade can pass between entry as a temporary worker and permanent residence due to inadequate and inflexible permanent visa caps while restrictions on temporary workers being able to change employers hold back some of the most creative and entrepreneurial immigrants. Provisional solution Immigration is always politically complex. But U.S. lawmakers can reap low-hanging fruit in at least one area: creating a new “provisional visa” allowing highly skilled workers currently entering the country on H-1B and similar temporary visas to move along a temporary-to-permanent path in a few years with minimal bureaucracy and in a transparent, predictable way. Hard work to be done While demand for new foreign workers at all skill levels has slackened, there is no evidence of substantial return or serial destination flows. Jobless immigrants or workers with expired visas are returning home; but many would have done so anyway (or gone elsewhere), seeking out new opportunities or a more favorable immigration system. For those concerned about the threat of loss of talent, the creakiness of a deeply outdated immigration system is almost certainly more worrisome than the recession. With time, the recession will end and the forces that have been driving immigration in recent years will re-emerge in full force: inadequate new worker pipelines and aging workforces in most advanced industrial nations; the growing thirst for workers with scarce skills; and the inevitable failure of any one country’s education system to produce enough talented workers to fuel rapid technological progress. Without action, the problems in the U.S. immigration system will probably intensify. The United States may retain its competitive edge in attracting the “best and the brightest” for now. But if it is to secure this advantage over the long term – and ensure U.S. firms continued access to the global talent pool – there is hard work to be done. Demetrios G. Papademetriou is president, Migration Policy Institute, an independent, nonpartisan, non-profit think tank dedicated to the study of the movement of people worldwide. Visit: www.migrationpolicy.org. |