The Emigration Zone, Lefkow Style....

Lefkow posted an interesting article about America's brand and emmigration on today's ERE: ERE Article.

It would be interesting to look at where emigrants are going. I don’t mean which country but which companies? I have talked to several recruiters who have mentioned an increased number of immigrants who want to work for an organization that will give them the option to work in their home countries in the future. I also still notice a large number of people interested in immigrating to the US. I think there are several simultaneous forces affecting the perception of what’s happening with immigration/emigration. Here are a few more things to think about with regard to this subject….

• We ran out of H1B’s a few months into this year and congress is working to approve more. This to me means that immigration is still running strong
• I don’t have the numbers in front of me but I would suspect that H1B’s increased significantly with the advent of the technology boom in the early 80’s
• My guess is that we are starting to see a cycle occur—as H1B status ends US trained immigrants head back—but I believe many of them stay working for multinational organizations—in some cases it’s the same company they worked for while in the US
• US companies now have a US trained person working in their home country which helps create better relationships/synergies with their overseas operations
• US companies also get the caliber of a US trained individual for lower labor costs (If we are talking about China/India etc)—but they are being paid a premium in their home country because they are more valuable to the multi-national; the emigrant now has a better standard of living in their home country

I agree that Dave’s article is good and makes you think. It also makes me wonder how this really positions America in the global economy. If we see an up swing of emigration how does this affect consumption of American products overseas. In a way we are teaching people how to consume like American’s. This may mean more jobs in the grand scheme of things.