Immigration Policy and the Search for Skilled Workers Summary of a Workshop (2015) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
4 Comparative System Design and Effects
4 Comparative System Design and Effects
Pages 29-60
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 29... ...
and Canadian immigration systems, and Jonathan Wadsworth, professor of economics at Royal Holloway College, University of London, described the United Kingdom's experience regarding its immigration policies. The three presentations were followed by comments from Francis Cissna, director of Immigration Policy at the U.S.
|
From page 30... ...
Canadian immigration policy includes a few broad immigration classes: economic class, family class, and refugee class. The economic class has accounted for between 60 and 65 percent of the approximately 260,000 immigrants annually, or 0.7 percent of Canada's population, over the past several years.
|
From page 31... ...
The target for the economic class is now 70 percent of all immigrants. Within the economic class, the number of visas granted under the Provincial Nominee Program and the Canadian Experience Class has increased substantially, while the number of Federal Skilled Worker Program visas has fallen.
|
From page 32... ...
In addition to setting overall immigration levels, Canadian policy makers need to determine the share of economic class immigrants, and among those economic class immigrants, the share of skilled workers. As far as setting goals for the fraction of the economic class that should be skilled versus unskilled labor in order to to generate the largest positive effect on the economy, the focus should be on attracting skilled workers while reducing the number of low-skilled immigrants.
|
From page 33... ...
Immigration policy should include a points system based on a small number of criteria, particularly age, education, key market skills, and English language fluency. Finally, he suggested that the United States should monitor Canada's planned "expression of interest" or "expressed entry model" for skilled immigration.
|
From page 34... ...
Canada's new immigration policies that emphasize economic class migrants may be the reason for Canada's success in attracting relatively higher numbers of graduate degree holders, compared to U.S. immigration policies that emphasize familybased admissions (Figure 4-3)
|
From page 35... ...
SOURCE: Calculations based on 2011 American Community Survey (U.S.) and 2011 National Household Survey (Canada)
|
From page 36... ...
One of the biggest differences between migrants to Canada and the United States is age distribution. This difference can be tied to immigration policy, with Canada's point system for economic migrants resulting in a greater percentage of younger individuals being granted visas.
|
From page 37... ...
As Giralt and Beach had already noted, Canada has changed its economic class immigration policy in response to these concerns. In the 1990s, Canada created its Provincial Nominee Program, which allows the provinces to essentially bypass the federal system, although there are still some federal security checks.
|
From page 38... ...
In addition, a larger share of permanent residents in the United States converted from temporary work visas than in Canada. One concern that economists have raised about Canada's temporary worker program is that provinces that receive a larger inflow of temporary foreign workers experience a reduction in the number of Canadian natives who move to that province possibly resulting in long-run displacement of Canadian natives.
|
From page 39... ...
Zavodny did not endorse a points system as the solution to attracting high-skilled migrants; instead she endorsed a policy based on flexibility and willingness to change. THE UNITED KINGDOM'S EXPERIENCE WITH IMMIGRATION POLICY According to Jonathan Wadsworth, although immigration to the United Kingdom has increased substantially over the past 20 years, the country is still in the "middle ranking" for immigration among OECD countries.
|
From page 40... ...
The system consists of five tiers, plus provisions for family reunification: • Tier 1: highly skilled (postgraduate/PhD) migrants coming for work rea sons without a definite job offer • Tier 2: skilled migrant workers with a definite job offer • Tier 3: low-skilled migrant workers • Tier 4: students • Tier 5: youth mobility schemes and temporary workers This system is demand-driven.
|
From page 41... ...
While Canada can enact a provincial level immigration system, the United States cannot, he noted as was recently reaffirmed by a U.S. Supreme Court decision that blocked most of what Arizona was trying to enact on its 4 own in terms of immigration policy.
|
From page 42... ...
The remaining 140,000 green cards are issued to people with college and advanced degrees. Cissna said that if comprehensive immigration reform ever makes it back onto the legislative agenda, an important policy decision will be determining whether the country should create more opportunities for low-skill individuals to get green cards, an issue of particular interest to the agricultural community.
|
From page 43... ...
With respect to temporary visa programs, Cissna agreed with Zavodny that those entering Canada with temporary visas were less skilled than those with U.S. temporary work visas.
|
From page 44... ...
In addition, in 2008, DHS extended the time that Canadians can work in the United States from one year to three years. COMPARISON OF SKILLED MIGRATION POLICIES AND OUTCOMES IN AUSTRALIA, CANADA, AND NEW ZEALAND Building on the earlier talks on Canada's immigration system by Beach and Zavodny, Lesleyanne Hawthorne provided a comparative analysis of how Canada, Australia, and New Zealand compete for and collaborate to attract skilled migrants.
|
From page 45... ...
It is essential to note all three counties have been increasing their use of data and analysis to constantly fine-tune immigration policy so that it emphasizes those pathways that work best in terms of meeting national employment goals. Although the three countries, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, shared a number of features in their immigration policies, there were also significant policy differences among them.
|
From page 46... ...
Hawthorne noted that data from both Canada's and Australia's sponsored temporary foreign workers program indicated that except for agricultural positions (which for Canada are filled largely by temporary workers from Mexico) , employers have a definite preference to sponsor workers from OECD countries and/or those who are native English or (in Canada)
|
From page 47... ...
In addition, different countries have different requirements to recognize foreign degree holders, which may affect the ability of the highly skilled migrant workers to obtain a job in his or her field. Only 19 percent of Indian medical school graduates who had migrated to Canada from 1996 to 2001 were working in medicine by 2001, while 66 percent were working in Australia.
|
From page 48... ...
Employers prefer to select both permanent and temporary skilled migrants who are already in Australia. As a result, employers are looking at former international students as well as temporary foreign workers.
|
From page 49... ...
There has been a major policy convergence between the three countries based on analysis of data and the ability to fine tune policy in response to the research findings made possible with those data. Canada plans to reform its immigration policy to adopt all the key measures implemented by Australia or New Zealand.
|
From page 50... ...
Canada has set a goal to get improved skilled migration outcomes in terms of early employment, and key selection mechanisms the country has adopted has been modeled on those developed by Australia or New Zealand. While the Canadian Experience Class is small so far, policymakers have expressed interest in increasing the size of this group.
|
From page 51... ...
Countries with a labor surplus -- predominantly China, Indonesia, and India -- are sending significant numbers of low-skilled workers to countries with labor deficits, leading to substantial movement of low-skilled workers, particularly to the Middle East. There has always been an element of "expatriate high-skilled migration with a post-colonial flavor" to it, but it has been tiny, in large part because most countries in Asia had restrictive migration policies for much of the post-colonial period.
|
From page 52... ...
Despite the belief that Japan is totally anti-migrant, the country has been open to skilled migration since 1990. While language and culture are significant barriers to entry, developments in immigration policy have taken place, including the institution of a points system.
|
From page 53... ...
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SKILLED MIGRATION POLICIES Anna Maria Mayda started her comments and review of the preceding two talks with a broad overview of the kind of skill-selective immigration policies that countries have adopted, particularly those analyzed by Hawthorne and Hugo. There are two types of skill-selective immigration policies: immigrant-driven and employer-driven.
|
From page 54... ...
In Asia, while the old view was that allowing foreign workers to enter was harmful to domestic workers and should be restricted, there is a new view emerging that skilled migration does benefit the receiving country. In fact, Asian countries have initiated strategies targeting skilled migrants.
|
From page 55... ...
." Two major factors driving the political economy of skilled migration policies are public opinion and interest group dynamics. While it may be natural to think that public opinion is only resistant to unskilled migrants, this is not necessarily the case, especially among skilled natives.
|
From page 56... ...
Beach replied that he has heard that there has been substantial and growing use of this class by foreign students who have graduated with degrees from Canadian institutions of higher education. As for the temporary foreign worker component of that program, he hypothesized that many of these workers may be applying through the Provincial Nominee Program instead.
|
From page 57... ...
He said that it will be important in the next round of comprehensive immigration reform, whenever that comes, to include a mechanism that will enable the government to change course more easily than is currently the case. "We see all of the countries trying various programs and we might try to copy parts of them but we can't," said Cissna.
|
From page 58... ...
acknowledge the importance of immigration policy issues and understand the potential economic benefits of immigration at least as far as students are concerned. He added that most employers focus on recruiting the best talent regardless of their country of origin.
|
From page 59... ...
Australia addressed the public's concerns by changing its policies to select migrants who were seen as being fit for Australia's immediate and longer-term economic interests. "I think that catalyzed the major shift toward skilled migration which we've persisted with since," said Hawthorne, referring to Australia's current immigration policies.
|
From page 60... ...
In Jean-Christophe Dumont's opinion, public attitudes about high-skilled migration in most OECD countries are mostly positive, with the United States being an exception. As a result, almost all OECD countries have routes for highskilled migrants that are fairly open.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.