"Europe's “blue card” plan: Not the ace in the pack"
The Economist, October 25th 2007
"The best educated seem keener to go almost anywhere but the European Union. In Australia nearly a tenth of the employed population are highly qualified foreigners, in Canada more than 7% and in America just over 3%. The EU manages a paltry 1.7%, or roughly 70,000 highly skilled non-Europeans in the workforce."
Of course, Australia and Canada have relatively small populations, so a small number of immigrants makes a large change in the workforce. But still, why is the U.S. unable to attract more of the best and the brightest from abroad? I suppose a part of the explanation is that so many immigrants have become U.S. citizens. Still, if the Aussies can manage ten percent of the workforce as highly qualified foreigners, the U.S. should not worry about increasing from three percent.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Interesting. My guts feeling is that it has to do with the immigration policies. Provided high human capital, moving to Canada or Australia is relatively easy. As far as i know, the story in the US is totally different. But I also wonder what are the numbers of foreigners studying in these countries? And how many of those stay or leave?
Open Doors presents the most recent data on foreign students in the United States.
For international comparisons of higher education enrollment, try the OECD Online Education Database.
Post a Comment