An Argument for More Skills-Focused Immigration

As we blogged earlier this week, the U.S. immigration laws do not really allow the nation to compete with other nations for the best and the brightest.  In “Recruiting the Tired, the Poor, the Wretched Refuse: Immigrant talent in the U.S. is an underused recruiting source of high-performers” in the upcoming issue of the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership, Richard Herman and Raghav Singh note that “Over 200 million people now work and live outside their country of birth. This is the largest number in world history…. Countries from Canada to New Zealand are scrambling to attract highly skilled immigrants to their shores…. In contrast, U.S. immigration policy is not designed to attract talent. . . . U.S. immigration policy has never placed great emphasis on talent and capital attraction.”

The punch line:  “In order to cotinue attracting the best and brightest job-creating minds, the U.S. needs to enact immigration-law reform that places an emphasis on attracting skills to fill shortages, as well as investment capital.”

Download Journal.Corporate.Recruiting.Leadership.9.08.pdf

KJ