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LinkedIn Study: US Attracting Fewer Educated, Highly Skilled Migrants
vinces99 writes The U.S. economy has long been powered in part by the nation's ability to attract the world's most educated and skilled people to its shores. But a new study of the worldwide migration of professionals to the U.S. shows a sharp drop-off in its proportional share of those workers – raising the question of whether the nation will remain competitive in attracting top talent in an increasingly globalized economy. The study, which used a novel method of tracking people through data from the social media site LinkedIn, is believed to be the first to monitor global migrations of professionals to the U.S., said co-author Emilio Zagheni, a University of Washington assistant professor of sociology and fellow of the UW eScience Institute. Among other things, the study, presented recently in Barcelona, Spain, found that just 13 percent of migrating professionals in the sample group chose the U.S. as a destination in 2012, down from 27 percent in 2000.
It has been obvious for some time that the US is on the decline. As a worker in the late stages of my career, I find that saddening but I don't know what we can do about it. In the 60's it was all about technology and progress and science. Kennedy made a speech where he asked where the US would get all the Engineers that would be needed for the future. Nowadays it is all about financial instruments and inventing ways to manipulate the numbers to look like you have more money than you do. And it is also about rejecting science when it doesn't agree with your religious leanings (sort of sounds like some other religions in other parts of the world, doesn't it?). I don't personally see the will in this country to continue the leadership into the future. It will probably take a generation or two, but then we will be another Spain or UK which was once a dominant world power. Let's just hope that the next big power is benevolent, or it is likely not to be very pretty.
Also, if you RTFS, they address that in their research bias section.
Yeah, they're using Linked-in for the data on people resumes, but if you also read the study, they have come up with some new category of “Employment-based migration” under the guise this provides as this givens a better idea of STEM transfers opposed to actual immigration, while completely ignoring things like Eurozone immigrations changes that made stuff like employment based migration possible on a large scale. At least their kind enough to point out the U.S. is still the top country for immigration, probably assuming we’ll all think they’re illegals.
The fact is, very few people leave the U.S. for jobs overseas and relatively few come here legally for jobs because it’s so damn difficult. That’s the reason these types numbers are low. I guarantee if we opened the borders for STEM grads only, we’d be overwhelmed. Many in the U.S.A fail to recognize the incredible gift they have living in this country but most outsiders would be happy to swap places with them. There’s really no place on earth as relatively free of the problems that dog all civilizations - crime, corruption, pollution, overpopulation, disease and really only one that also offers vast economic opportunities and the ability to change who you overnight.
H1B here. Let me correct some of the most common misconceptions...
1. They're cheaper than hiring US citizens.
Not always. Unlike common misconception people in H1B can change jobs and if I'm not getting what I'm worth, I will switch my job! Now, it requires some paper work where your new employer has to file for your H1B transfer but this is daily routine for them, nothing unusual.
What you probably meant to say is that H1Bs lower the average wages. I'll give you that. It's simply a matter of demand and supply. If there is a bigger pool of employees, wages will go up at a slower pace (if at all).
2. They cannot change jobs as easily as US citizens. No matter how many hours you demand that they work.
Of course not. H1Bs can change jobs. There is additional paper work to be done (as explained above). But not as difficult as you are making it to be.
However, there is a time when we apply for a green card we cannot change jobs for about 1-2 years. Yes, if we change jobs in the middle of this, we have to restart the green card process from scratch. But after this process is completed, we can change jobs just as before.
3. They're easier to dispose of. You just send them back home. No need to worry about wrongful termination suits or such.
We're just as easy to dispose as any other US citizen. No one can just send me back home. They have to give me a notice (my observation: varies between 2 weeks and 2 months) that I am being laid off or fired. If I find another job in that time frame, I do not have to leave the country. I can just start working for the new employer. You are right about I cannot stay jobless in the country. However, if I did manage to find another job (thus, continue my legal status in US), I can file a wrongful termination suit (if something inappropriate happened). This is also the reason why none of my H1B friends who have been laid-off/fired, have never faced wrongful termination (never personally experienced this, so I don't have first hand knowledge). They were given a good package (2-6 months salary depending on their experience) and decent notice of termination (2-6 weeks). Yes, they all found new jobs which paid even higher salaries than they were getting before.
Overall, I understand why there are those misconceptions because for nearly every point of yours I debunked there was an exception or a qualifier that I had to mention. Obama's recently announced executive order should make life easier for H1Bs too (though the media was only talking about illegals). This should help H1Bs to become bolder and make the marketplace more competitive.