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LinkedIn Study: US Attracting Fewer Educated, Highly Skilled Migrants 338

Posted by samzenpus from the best-and-brightest dept.
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.
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LinkedIn Study: US Attracting Fewer Educated, Highly Skilled Migrants More

LinkedIn Study: US Attracting Fewer Educated, Highly Skilled Migrants

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  • Africa and Latin America also saw an uptick in their share of the worldâ(TM)s professional migration flows.

    If this is true, will we be seeing more high-tech startups opening shop in Africa and Central America?

  • I have highly educated friends that are getting kicked out of the country after losing the H1-B lotto, I don't think it's an issue with not being able to attract people.

  • In my experience (as a dev team lead and interviewer) foreign workers are generally more educated, more productive and more willing to got the extra mile than the local self-entitled bunch.
    Now because of your whiny "teamstering" here on Slashdot, the visa numbers wil probably go down, hurting US business.

    • And cheaper, right? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Monday November 24, 2014 @03:53PM (#48451415)

      In my experience (as a dev team lead and interviewer) foreign workers are generally more educated, more productive and more willing to got the extra mile than the local self-entitled bunch.

      Well, unless you secretly work for Google or some such, this is not about you. They're the ones who can afford to attract the best people from around the world.

      The other people claiming to be in tech usually mean H-1B visa recipients. And the real reasons to hire them are:

      1. They're cheaper than hiring US citizens.

      2. They cannot change jobs as easily as US citizens. No matter how many hours you demand that they work.

      3. They're easier to dispose of. You just send them back home. No need to worry about wrongful termination suits or such.

      If you cannot afford to hire the people with the training necessary then you need to look at your business plan.

      Complaining that the local people who will take the job at the pay you're offering lack the education necessary says more about your pay than about the skills of the local people.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        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 suppl

    • It has nothing to do with the US economy taking a hit or the fact that there is now more going on in other parts of the world. It is all because Slashdot complained about an H1B Visa program that exists to supply cheap labor.

      Yes, I fed the troll. Sue me.

    • Good, more jobs for the skilled locals that won't bend over and take a low wage in the ass for highly technical work.
  • Considering that companies have been abusing the H1B process for some time now, perhaps we're just seeing a correction in-part inspired by greater success in potential migrants' home countries.

    Salary is a supply/demand characteristic. The more people capable of doing a job, generally the less it pays. This holds true across the entire spectrum of employment until one reaches those that control the market in which they are paid from (ie, corporate executives). Desirability of a job is often not much of
    • The people for which the H1B program were created no longer find it worthwhile to come here under that program. We used to pay competitive wages for the best of the best from other countries. Now we pay slave wages to whomever applies. Why should the best of the best come over here for slave wages? Fix the H1B program so that it pays industry standard wages for a select few individuals, perhaps a few thousand per year, and soon enough we will be attracting the best and brightest again. The best and brightes

  • Solid research there (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NotDrWho ( 3543773 ) on Monday November 24, 2014 @03:41PM (#48451311)

    The study, which used a novel method of tracking people through data from the social media site LinkedIn

    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.

    Pretty impressive finding results from LinkedIn back in 2000, considering it didn't launch until 2003.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rwa2 ( 4391 ) *

      Pretty impressive finding results from LinkedIn back in 2000, considering it didn't launch until 2003.

      Heh, if you were really Dr. Who, you could find a way to make that happen :D

      To be fair, LinkedIn has appeared to reach critical mass just within the past year or two (at least my account is finally exploding with people I've worked with in the past, similar to when I begrudgingly realized that people actually use Facebook way back when).

      Also, if you RTFS, they address that in their research bias section. And if you're a LinkedIn luser, you might realize that eventually they goad you into uploading most of

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by crackspackle ( 759472 )

        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 immi

        • "Thereâ(TM)s really no place on earth as relatively free of the problems that dog all civilizations - crime, corruption, pollution, overpopulation, disease"

          Yeah. Except for basically every other first-world country.

          "and really only one that also offers vast economic opportunities and the ability to change who you overnight."

          Yes. For the good. And also for the bad.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sconeu ( 64226 )

      Must have been damned early in 2003. I got laid off in Feb 2003, and one of the managers recommended LinkedIn as part of the job search.

    • You do realize that people can list their former places of employment and habitation, even prior to the site's founding? To say "I worked at company X in country Y in 2000" does not require that the website you say it on have existed in 2000.

  • This is not at all surprising to me.

    Straight up, off the top-- we have a major sector of the US job market (which long ago moved away from manufacturing based jobs to services and technical skills based jobs) that seeks absurd paper requirements, and prices itself out of the domestic labor market, seeking to satisfy its absurd tastes in workers using H1B laborers, creating a market for H1B laborers.

    This new market creates very lucrative opportunities in other countries to get desperate people suitably pap

    • There's also the "Immigrant laborers are doing jobs americans dont want to do!" rhetoric...That does NOT attract the "best and brightest".

      For the jobs you're talking about, it's not clear to me that they intend to attract the "best and brightest". They're willing to settle for, "Will work long hours picking fruit for almost no money, and will be too afraid to report me if I break labor laws."

      • Exactly. You get what you pay for.

        There is immense job market demand for compliant wage-slaves. Coupled with the institutionalized bald-faced-lies in the H1B sector, you have 2 major employment sectors promoting a glut of lacklustre or low skill level immigrants to come to the country.

        The cumulative effects of this bring down otherwise high paying wages in the rest of the economy, making the US less and less attractive to actually highly-valued immigrants with highly sought-after skill sets-- It is not wor

  • Well, we treat them like crap. On top of that they come here and find that they have very few opportunities to advance any more. Why would they want to come here? They'd be better off going to a civilized first-world country rather than the third-world construct we are trying so hard to make the US into.

  • US Attracting Fewer Educated, Highly Skilled Migrants

    Oh, I'm quite sure, we attract plenty. We just would not allow their education and other qualifications to help them gain entrance. Other countries use "points" systems to filter better candidates through, but the US deems the method discriminatory.

    Meanwhile, the unwashed wogs keep getting through the open border — selected based on the lucky geography, rather than education or anything useful — and accommodating them takes all our energies.

  • The headline is one conclusion. The other is that workers looking to migrate to the US find LinkedIn less valuable compared to workers migrating to other countries. I'm sure there are numerous other conclusions you could draw from such a novel method.

  • It's obvious (Score:4, Interesting)

    by surfdaddy ( 930829 ) on Monday November 24, 2014 @04:00PM (#48451465)
    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.

    • I'm not sure how it relates to the conversation, but the US still does have a lot of engineers. Unfortunately, a lot of them are scrambling in competition to build a half-assed mobile app that they can sell to Google for a billion dollars. That's the American dream these days: make a half-assed company that I can sell for a lot of money before people realize it's useless and the whole thing implodes.

  • Perspective (Score:5, Informative)

    by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) on Monday November 24, 2014 @04:04PM (#48451493) Journal

    I'm one of said H1B visas, now with a green card. Been here almost exactly 10 years now, after Apple bought my company. I came here for the money and the weather, not for anything else. Frankly I don't think the US society is as "free" as people here seem to believe.

    I've mentioned this here before, and (understandably, no-one likes bad news) I tend to get down voted for it, but the simple honest truth of the matter is that the USA isn't geared for looking after people, it's geared towards controlling people. There's things I like about it (the job is great, the weather is excellent, the people (as individuals who I meet day-to-day) are generally wonderful unless driving, the money is still good, I like my house and I met my wife here - my son is dual American/British).

    There's things I don't like too, (the militarisation of the police, the lack of any reasonable healthcare, the "I'm alright Jack, screw you" attitude of a *lot* of people - weirdly enough those who often really *aren't* alright, the schooling system, and for lack of any better term, the country's soul). As time passes, and I get older, these seem to be more important. I can't see myself retiring here, and in fact I can't see myself here in another 10 years. That's not the attitude I came to the US with, it's something I've developed while I've been here.

    Let's be frank here, I'm not trying to boast, but I'm one of the 'have's - I have a million dollar house (which sounds a lot more impressive than it really is in this neighbourhood) which is almost paid off, I have a high six-figure income, and I've money in the bank. I'm not a "1%er" but I'm up there with the rest... however, even with all of this, I'm not happy with the way the country is going. There's little-to-no safety net for joe public, and seemingly (*both* houses Republican, seriously ?) no desire for that. I think the USA is far closer to oligarchy than democracy, and the long-term trend just looks like it gets worse from here on out.

    [sigh]

    Simon.

    • "freedom" in the US is just a Stockholm syndrome illusion that everybody consensually hallucinates about constantly.

    • I'm not a "1%er"

      I have a high six-figure income

      Which one of these two statements is a lie?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by TheSync ( 5291 )

        top 1% AGI is $388,905 (in 2011, the most recent year for which the IRS has final data, reference [taxfoundation.org]).

        • And that's in the US only. Worldwide it is about 32k$ [globalrichlist.com]

        • top 1% AGI is $388,905 (in 2011, the most recent year for which the IRS has final data, reference [taxfoundation.org]).

          If he makes $300,000 and he considers that a high six figure, then he is not lying at all. Note that $100,000 is a "six figure income", and these days not at all high in the scheme of things. So his statement may just be drawing the distinction of someone making a multiple of "six figure" (three in this case) as opposed to barely breaking that antiquated inflation-devalued benchmark.

        • To me, "high six-figure income" implies more than $500K.

      • Most people consider 250K as high six figure income. (meaning high income + six figure income). It would not be 1% but still up there with the rest.

    • the "I'm alright Jack, screw you" attitude of a *lot* of people - weirdly enough those who often really *aren't* alright,

      You hear this line from many comfortable people, who being set for life, are eager to screw over everyone else with high taxes and regulations to make themselves feel even more superior. If you think you have too much sell your house and give the money to charity. Nah, your humanitarianism will look more like imposing a 25% VAT on toilet paper and doubling the price of gas for the good of the little people. Businesses cut back on hiring, can't afford anything extra in life after taxes to support government

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      I have a high six-figure income, and I've money in the bank. I'm not a "1%er" but I'm up there with the rest...

      If I recall correctly, any six-figure salary makes you a 0,1%er globally. It doesn't really show until you travel but then it's just weird, like people making less in a year than you make in a week. It's no wonder they like tourists or our money anyway, to them it seems we have insane amounts and because it's relatively cheap we're inclined to spend it more loosely as well. But if they ever came to visit me, they'd think paying >$10000/m^2 for an apartment is absurdity itself.

  • Lack of opportunity in general? (Score:3)

    by ErichTheRed ( 39327 ) on Monday November 24, 2014 @04:05PM (#48451497)

    In the IT sector, I can see a few things driving this:
    - Infrastructure and dev jobs are increasingly being farmed out to cloud providers and outsourcers, meaning fewer on site jobs are needed, at least at the low end. (Which is a pity, because you don't get good high-end people if they can't start out at the low end like they used to.)
    - In general, economic growth is still slow in most sectors, so a lot of the traditional demand for IT isn't there.
    - Tech Bubble 2.0 is increasingly eating up resources building web-based services and phone apps. Startups want young hungry coders who are exactly like the founders, which may lead to fewer foreigners being employed.
    - The US isn't exactly welcoming to foreigners these days, given the debate on immigration. Even if someone is the best and brightest, it's possible they would feel lumped in with everyone else.

    In STEM, it's bigger trends that are probably driving it:
    - Other countries are more science friendly -- they fund it well and there's less of a cultural bias against "smart people".
    - Science in general is a bad career prospect given the imbalance of graduates and permanent research positions. Most big corporate labs are shells of what they once were, and academic institutions seem to want to keep everyone on permanent postdoc status. I would have to have a total passion for my work to accept tenuous circumstances like that, and would probably be nearly broke for most of my life.

    This, plus the abuse of the H1-B program by IT companies, is probably a good starter list of reasons. For every great H1-B hire, there are many stories of junior guys with questionable skills and credentials being run through a large technology company's meat grinder churning out code or performing low end tasks. It's definitely a misuse of the program in this case, since it was designed to correct a critical skills imbalance.

    One thing that might reverse the trend is the fact that fewer domestic people are going into STEM fields, given the cost and the fact that it's no longer a guarantee of gainful employment. It's counter intuitive given how well _successful_ STEM graduates do compared to the general population, but once a precedent is set, it's hard to change people's minds. Think about how many IT people you know who actively say they're telling their children to avoid following in their footsteps.

  • The study, which used a novel method of tracking people through data from the social media site LinkedIn...

    isn't this more a study on global use of the site LinkedIn, than on the migration of workers?

    The only people I know that still use LinkedIn are desperate and unemployable. Their service got to be such an annoyance where I work that I personally entered their domain into our blacklist. It's the only domain that's specifically blacklisted. Pornhub and Xtube aren't even blacklisted (though I think they'd trip the TMG servers pretty quickly)

    • "The only people I know that still use LinkedIn are desperate and unemployable."

      I think it's kind of like Facebook. Some people use it 24 hours a day and are addicted, and others use it as a convenient way to share pictures and keep up with extended relations. The recruiter spam is awful, but it's kind of like the ads you're forced to watch to use Facebook. I've found it useful solely to keep track of people I've worked with in the past. Since people increasingly hop from place to place, it's a convenient w

    • The only people I know that still use LinkedIn are desperate and unemployable.

      When I got an iPhone for the first time this year, I was able to merge together my email address from Yahoo Mail and phone numbers on my cellphone. By importing matching profiles from the LinkedIn app into my contacts, I was able to better identify recruiters. My LinkedIn connections went from ~250 to 600+ in a month. I got a new job a month after being out of work for seven months.

  • The talent is already here, just that it resides with citizens (full and naturalized) of the United States of America. Where it does not exactly exist, citizens are more likely to start from a competent, trainable background - unlike the majority of guest workers. The only problem is that employers see freedom as a cost when someone else has it as opposed to a benefit when held by an employer.

    More good would be done by repealing the 1965 Immigration Act and removing the regulations it enabled. Then if so

    • More good would be done by repealing the 1965 Immigration Act and removing the regulations it enabled.

      It also abolished the National Origins formula - do you want that back, too?

  • When I went back to school to learn computer programming after the Dot Com Bust to re-focus my technical career, there were two long-term trends in my favor: baby boomers would retire and China/India would stop exporting workers. Pay for skilled I.T. workers will only increase as demand goes up and supply goes down. Alas, the Great Recession has postponed this by a few years. The great I.T. crunch is nigh!

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