Talent Shift

The Economist devotes is special report to global immigration. The chart above shows the key flows.  Two other key facts.

1. There are an estimated 200 million global migrants world-wide, 3 percent of the world's population.

2. The USA has the largest number of immigrants, but not the largest percentage.  Australia does, followed by Switzerland, Canada, Germany, then the USA, Sweden, Ireland, the UK and France (see below).

Could it be, that without even restricting immigration further, the USA is already falling behind. The whole thing is here.

Comments

[Paul White]

Its hard to say we're falling behind when in sheer numbers the US has more immigrants than every country on that list. But when the US gov't allows incidences like the recent H1-B shortage to take place, it does hurt our competitiveness. For example, Microsoft opened a research campus in Canada this fall for all the engineers that couldn't get the visa. I have several foreign born friends who work in the finance arena who went to prestigious graduate programs in the US who were forced to leave because of the H1-B. Where did they go? London and Dubai, almost exclusively.

[Paul White]

meant to say above, every country on that list combined.

[RF]

Paul, Yes of course, the US is BIG country. But the percent is an eye-popping figure. How many Americans would know - or believe - that the US is fifth in percentage of population made up of immigrants. Other countries have woken up to the benefits of openness. Like I said in Flight, as this pattern compounds over time it is the combined effects of openness across multiple countries combine with US relative closure that is likely to hurt. These effects will show up in a decade or two.

[reve]

It's adequate to define as falling behind when Australia has a 23.6% and the U.S. a 12.2% foreign-born population. On top of that, Australia ranks 6th in the EIU "quality of life" survey, while the U.S. @13th rank. Do you see the doubling effect? (not that I am claiming any correlation, since other factors factor in.)

The survey would have benefited though, to have addressed the migration of people born in the developed world, say Americans, Britons leaving their own respective countries. The British Office for National Statistics reported in November 2007 that 400,000 people left Britain in 2006, out of which 207,000 were Britons, the highest number ever recorded. The majority left for Australia.

[reve]

It's adequate to define as falling behind when Australia has a 23.6% and the U.S. a 12.2% foreign-born population. On top of that, Australia ranks 6th in the EIU "quality of life" survey, while the U.S. @13th rank. Do you see the doubling effect? (not that I am claiming any correlation, since other factors factor in.)

The survey would have benefited though, to have addressed the migration of people born in the developed world, say Americans, Britons leaving their own respective countries. The British Office for National Statistics reported in November 2007 that 400,000 people left Britain in 2006, out of which 207,000 were Britons, the highest number ever recorded. The majority left for Australia.

[RF]

I've said it for a long time - Australia is the country of the future. Big, open, warm, abundant, beautiful. Sort of a giant, peaceful California. In the middle of booming Asia, mate.

[RF]

One more thing: when working in Noosa on our project there, I thought I was in heaven.

[Michael Wells]

The years when immigrants came and rate of change would be interesting. The US has always been a nation of immigrants. Many of the influx from after WWII are still alive, the Southeast Asians from the 70's, etc. Unless I'm mistaken, all of the other countries except (somewhat) England and France were pretty homogenous a decade or two ago.

I think where the US is falling behind is in recent trends, and in the non-welcoming attitudes of both the government and a large part of the population.

[Matt]

Michael, I was thinking the same thing -- those numbers mask any recent trends because they represent a whole generation.

But I also wonder if the "nation of immigrants" notion is a bit outdated for the US. I'm sure there are good statistical reasons not to compare these two directly, but:

US census shows foreign-born population around 15% a century ago but hovering in the mid-single digits for most of the 20th century:
http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0029/tab01.html

Canadian census shows a foreign-born population over 15% for almost all of the 20th century:
http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census06/analysis/immcit/charts/chart1.htm

And here are some numbers for region of origin...

US -- this shows origin of all foreign-born people in a given census:
http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0029/tab02.html
Canada -- this only shows origin of "recent immigrants":
http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census06/analysis/immcit/charts/chart2.htm

[DC]

Some would be tempted to look at the two major sources of US immigrants and comment that only one, China, represents a source of skilled immigrants, while the other, Mexico and S.A., represents a source of primarily unskilled immigrants. I would counter that our hostility towards Latin American immigrants, coupled with the H-1B blunder, has damaged our reputation as an attractive destination for immigrants. I believe you covered this argument in an earlier thread.

[Michael Wells]

DC. Lots of unskilled Chinese too. But like the Latinos, their children or grandchildren get skilled, if they don't.

Paul. In raw numbers, the US immigrant population not only surpasses the foreign born of the others together. We have more immigrants than the total population of Canada -- and almost as many as the total populations of Australia, Switzerland, Sweden and Ireland combined.