Why Skilled Immigrants Are Leaving the U.S.

Source: Business Week
New research shows that highly skilled workers are returning home for brighter career prospects and a better quality of life

By Vivek Wadhwa


As the debate over H-1B workers and skilled immigrants intensifies, we are losing sight of one important fact: The U.S. is no longer the only land of opportunity. If we don't want the immigrants who have fueled our innovation and economic growth, they now have options elsewhere. Immigrants are returning home in greater numbers. And new research shows they are returning to enjoy a better quality of life, better career prospects, and the comfort of being close to family and friends.

Earlier research by my team suggested that a crisis was brewing because of a burgeoning immigration backlog. At the end of 2006, more than 1 million skilled professionals (engineers, scientists, doctors, researchers) and their families were in line for a yearly allotment of only 120,000 permanent resident visas. The wait time for some people ran longer than a decade. In the meantime, these workers were trapped in "immigration limbo." If they changed jobs or even took a promotion, they risked being pushed to the back of the permanent residency queue. We predicted that skilled foreign workers would increasingly get fed up and return to countries like India and China where the economies were booming.

Why should we care? Because immigrants are critical to the country's long-term economic health. Despite the fact that they constitute only 12% of the U.S. population, immigrants have started 52% of Silicon Valley's technology companies and contributed to more than 25% of our global patents. They make up 24% of the U.S. science and engineering workforce holding bachelor's degrees and 47% of science and engineering workers who have PhDs. Immigrants have co-founded firms such as Google (GOOG), Intel (INTC), eBay (EBAY), and Yahoo! (YHOO).
Who Are They? Young and Well-Educated

We tried to find hard data on how many immigrants had returned to India and China. No government authority seems to track these numbers. But human resources directors in India and China told us that what was a trickle of returnees a decade ago had become a flood. Job applications from the U.S. had increased tenfold over the last few years, they said. To get an understanding of how the returnees had fared and why they left the U.S., my team at Duke, along with AnnaLee Saxenian of the University of California at Berkeley and Richard Freeman of Harvard University, conducted a survey. Through professional networking site LinkedIn, we tracked down 1,203 Indian and Chinese immigrants who had worked or received education in the U.S. and had returned to their home countries. This research was funded by the Kauffman Foundation.

Our new paper, "America's Loss Is the World's Gain," finds that the vast majority of these returnees were relatively young. The average age was 30 for Indian returnees, and 33 for Chinese. They were highly educated, with degrees in management, technology, or science. Fifty-one percent of the Chinese held master's degrees and 41% had PhDs. Sixty-six percent of the Indians held a master's and 12.1% had PhDs. They were at very top of the educational distribution for these highly educated immigrant groups—precisely the kind of people who make the greatest contribution to the U.S. economy and to business and job growth.

Nearly a third of the Chinese returnees and a fifth of the Indians came to the U.S. on student visas. A fifth of the Chinese and nearly half of the Indians entered on temporary work visas (such as the H-1B). The strongest factor that brought them to the U.S. was professional and educational development opportunities.

What They Miss: Family and Friends

They found life in the U.S. had many drawbacks. Returnees cited language barriers, missing their family and friends at home, difficulty with cultural assimilation, and care of parents and children as key issues. About a third of the Indians and a fifth of the Chinese said that visas were a strong factor in their decision to return home, but others left for opportunity and to be close to family and friends. And it wasn't just new immigrants who were returning. In fact, 30% of respondents held permanent resident status or were U.S. citizens.

Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 79% of Indians said a strong factor in their original decision to return home was the growing demand for their skills in their home countries. Their instincts generally proved right. Significant numbers moved up the organization chart. Among Indians the percentage of respondents holding senior management positions increased from 10% in the U.S. to 44% in India, and among Chinese it increased from 9% in the U.S. to 36% in China. Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 62% of Indians said they had better opportunities for longer-term professional growth in their home countries than in the U.S. Additionally, nearly half were considering launching businesses and said entrepreneurial opportunities were better in their home countries than in the U.S.

Friends and family played an equally strong role for 88% of Indians and 77% of Chinese. Care for aging parents was considered by 89% of Indians and 79% of Chinese to be much better in their home countries. Nearly 80% of Indians and 67% of Chinese said family values were better in their home countries.
More Options Back Home

Immigrants who have arrived at America's shores have always felt lonely and homesick. They had to make big personal sacrifices to provide their children with better opportunities than they had. But they never have had the option to return home. Now they do, and they are leaving.

It isn't all rosy back home. Indians complained of traffic and congestion, lack of infrastructure, excessive bureaucracy, and pollution. Chinese complained of pollution, reverse culture shock, inferior education for children, frustration with government bureaucracy, and the quality of health care. Returnees said they were generally making less money in absolute terms, but they also said they enjoyed a higher quality of life.

We may not need all these workers in the U.S. during the deepening recession. But we will need them to help us recover from it. Right now, they are taking their skills and ideas back to their home countries and are unlikely to return, barring an extraordinary recruitment effort and major changes to immigration policy. That hardly seems likely given the current political climate. The policy focus now seems to be on doing whatever it takes to retain existing American jobs—even if it comes at the cost of building a workforce for the future of America.

Canada Recognises Indian Law Degree

Source: The Hindu News Update Service
Toronto (PTI): Broadening prospects for legal professionals coming from India and other Asian countries, Canadian authorities have decided to recognise their law degrees equivalent to that of the U.K. and Australia.

"The National Committee on Accreditation (NCA) has decided that three-year full-time law degrees from Common Law Countries including India, England and Australia should be treated equivalently regardless of their country of origin. It is a substantial reduction in barrier to entry into legal profession," Vern Krishna, outgoing executive director of the NCA, said on Sunday.

Prof. Krishna, who will retire on June 30 after 27 years of his service, said that the new decision that came in force from March 1 and again revised on May 1, 2009 would pave the way for Indian lawyers and other foreign trained professionals quicker integration into the mainstream.

"Law degrees from India, Australia, Bangladesh, England, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, the U.S., Wales and West Indies are being treated equivalently," Prof. Krishna said.

He, however, said that professionals from these countries willing to practice law in Canada have to qualify exams in about six subjects depending upon the subjects they studied and grade obtained in order to achieve equivalence. Besides, they will have to write bar exams to practice as a lawyer here, he added.

The exams will test ability of foreign aspirants about their knowledge of law, how they apply it and their competence that allow them to serve public, he said.

Prof. Krishna said that Canada is offering vast opportunities for South Asian Legal professionals as trade and investment between Canada and South Asia are expected to grow significantly in years to come.

Welcoming the NCA's decision, Bhausaheb Ubale, former chief of Canadian Human Rights Commission, said that the step removed biggest barrier faced by Indian legal professionals and demanded similar provision in other professions also.

Foreign credentials recognition - or, more aptly, its non-recognition - is a "systemic problem" that continues to exist in Canada, said Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney.

He said his government has tripled its fund allocations to the foreign credential recognition programme.

"We're creating a national framework and hope to be able to present it in a year for now," he said, adding that it will enable the newcomers to have their credentials assessed quicker and paving the way towards their integration into the mainstream jobs market.

Recession Makes the Frozen North More Appealing By Tamar Lewin

Source:http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/canada/?hp

With American college costs rising, and the American dollar strong against the Canadian currency, more and more high school students are looking to Canadian universities for their college education.
Canadian and U.S. dollarsAP Photo/Ryan Remiorz, The Canadian Press

According to the Canadian embassy, more than 9,000 U.S. students are studying at Canadian universities and colleges, up from 2,500 12 years ago.

The cost advantage is enormous. Because Canadian universities are publicly financed and heavily subsidized by the government, even the higher tuition for foreign students is only about $15,000 — about half as much as at a selective American liberal-arts college.

Not surprisingly, given the recession, American interest in top Canadian universities has been particularly strong this year. A Boston Globe article in December found that in many Massachusetts high schools, universities like McGill, in Montreal, Dalhousie, in Halifax, and the University of Toronto, were very much on students’ radar.

The Canadian press, too, has carried recent stories about the trend, like this one from The Globe and Mail, in which a recruiting official at the University of Toronto, where applications from American students have tripled in seven years, said that when she tells American parents to expect to pay about $30,000 for tuition, books and housing, they often ask if that is for a term or for the whole year.

A Canadian government Web site, helps guide prospective students through the simpler-than-in-the-United-States admissions process.


Indian students flock to study in Canada

June 01 2009 by Ranjan Chakraborty

Canadian immigration is taking measures to attract Indian students with a new pilot project which will enable students who want to study in Canada to gain student visas within just seven to ten days.

The scheme follows problems involving false documentation, with many Indian students being rejected for Canadian student visas after being duped by bogus immigration agencies. In light of this, the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi is piloting a scheme that will check for fraudulent documentation and boost the number of Indians going to study in Canada.

Jagdeep Singh, from International Educational & Career Consultants, says the Canadian High Commission is hoping to attract more Indians to move to Canada to study this year following a high rejection rate in 2008. He says the new scheme will be simplified and is intended to quickly ascertain an applicant’s “correct financial status.”

Singh says that Canada is now hoping more Indian students will choose Canada rather than going to study in the US or in Australia. He says that Canada has high quality universities and that it wants to generate more money for its economy by boosting the number of foreign students it welcomes.

Advice to students looking to obtain a Canadian student visa includes: [1] using a bona fide, reputable immigration agency with an excellent track record; [2] choosing the right course at the right educational establishment; [3] be truthful at all times and show genuine documentation. If the application is rejected because of fraudulent documentation, the chances of reversing a refused visa are very slim.

How Much Does Immigrating Really Cost?


Let's welcome another interesting blog article from Zhu. She is the blogger behind Correr es mi destino blog.

Are you eligible to immigrate to Canada? Are you filling up the paperworks? Awesome! But wait… do you have enough money?

Sure, you though of the processing fees. But did you realize there were also a lot of fees associated with immigrating to Canada? In this post, I’m going to try to sum up how much do you really need to paid to immigrate to Canada.

The processing fees

Depending on the category you applied in, you will be charged different fees:

* In the skilled worker category: it’s $550 for the principal applicant, $550 for the spouse, and $150 per children under 22 years old.
* In the sponsorship category: the sponsor application is $75, the person sponsored is charged $475.

Applicant who plan to settle in Quebec must apply for a Certificat de Selection du Quebec (CSQ). It costs $390 for the principal applicant, $150 for a spouse, and $150 for each child.

All landed immigrants in Canada must paid the right of permanent residence fee, which is $490 per person.

Citizenship and Immigration has a handy table to help you calculate your application fees.

Fees associated with the application

* If your documents (such a degrees, work documents etc.) are not in French or English, you must provide a translation of these documents. This has to be done by a authorized translator.
* You must include several photographs and the rules are quite specific (yes, Canadians are weird with passport pictures!). Depending where you live, it adds up. In Canada, it cost about $12 for two pics — not cheap if you immigrate as a family!
* You may need to have your foreign degrees recognized in Canada. This is called a credential evaluation, and it’s done by specific organization, such as World Education Services. A basic official evaluation cost about $115 and up.
* If you are from a country where nor English nor French is the official language, you will have to prove your language abilities. This is one of the 6 selection factors for skilled workers. The language proficiency test must given by an organization that is approved by Citizenship and Immigration, for example IELTS ($265) and CELPIP f($250) for English, or the TEF for French ($250). No cheap!
* A medical exam is compulsory for each applicant and their dependents (spouse, children) and must be made by a physician on Canada’s list of designated medical practitioners. Usually, you paid twice: once for the exam itself, and once for the X-rays that have to be taken. Fees vary by country, and even by geographic location within a country. Doctors fees vary, so shop around! I remember paying $100 for the medical exam and another $100 for the X-ray, in 2005, in Ottawa.

Don’t forget to consider miscellaneous fees!

* Traveling expenses: you may have to travel from your city to your local Canadian visa office (typically, in your home country’s capital, with some exceptions). Why would you need to travel? Well, if you need to be interviewed for your application. Sometimes, your city won’t have a designated medical practitioner, so may have to travel to another city for your medical exam.
* Passport application: a lot of people don’t realize they need a passport from their home country to immigrate to Canada. You have to apply for one before you start the immigration process, and chances are, it will cost something, although it varies by country.


Don’t forget…

And don’t forget the settlement funds. If you apply in the skilled worker category, you will have to prove that you have enough funds to support yourself and your family for the first few months following your arrival in Canada. For one person, it’s roughly $10,000, and up to almost $23,000 for a family of five.

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