Berkeley Professor: Skilled Immigrants Create Jobs

[amborin]

"Skilled immigrants provide one of America’s
greatest advantages. They contribute to the
economy, create jobs, and lead innovation.

In January 2007, we published a report titled
“Americas New Immigrant Entrepreneurs,”1 which
showed that immigrants are fuelling the creation
of hi-tech business across the nation and creating
a wealth of intellectual property.

Our research
produced some startling statistics: in 25.3 percent
of technology and engineering companies started
in the United States from 1995 to 2005, at least
one key founder was foreign-born; in California,
this percentage was 38.8; in North Carolina, the
percentage was only 13.9.

Our analysis of Silicon
Valley and Research Triangle Park (RTP) showed
greater concentrations of immigrant founders. In
Silicon Valley, 52.4 percent of companies had an
immigrant as a key founder, as did 18.7 percent
of RTP. Nationwide, these immigrant-founded
companies produced $52 billion in sales and
employed 450,000 workers in 2005......"

snip

<http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~anno/Papers/Americas_new_immigrant_entrepreneurs_II.pdf>




"Silicon Valley's workforce is among the world's most ethnically diverse. Not only do Asian and
Hispanic workers dominate the low-paying, blue-collar workforce, but foreign-born scientists and
engineers are increasingly visible as entrepreneurs and senior management.

More than a quarter of Silicon Valley's highly skilled workers are immigrants, including tens of thousands from lands as diverse as China, Taiwan, India, the United Kingdom, Iran, Vietnam, the Philippines, Canada, and Israel.

Understandably, the rapid growth of the foreign-born workforce has evoked intense debates over
U.S. immigration policy, both here and in the developing world. In the United States, discussions
of the immigration of scientists and engineers have focused primarily on the extent to which
foreign-born professionals displace native workers.

The view from sending countries, by contrast,
has been that the emigration of highly skilled personnel to the United States represents a big
economic loss, a "brain drain."

Neither view is adequate in today's global economy. Far from simply replacing native workers,
foreign-born engineers are starting new businesses and generating jobs and wealth at least as
fast as their U.S. counterparts....."

snip

<http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~anno/Papers/brain-circulation-brookings-review-2002.pdf>

[UndertheOcean]

1. Didn't you get the news , humans born beyond certian imaginary border lines are stealing our Jobs

The Jobs of the humans born within those lines.

[Hello_Kitty]

2. Well since they've defunded education here in the US, that's not surprising.

But hey, what's the point of investing in young Americans when you can bring in workers from other countries that provide education to their citizens?

Externalized costs! :woohoo:

[amborin]

3. yes,

but some of them get their good educations here

and some U.S. public education is a bargain, the uc system is an example

but you're right, we need to spend more money on public education

and stop funding private schools

[Hello_Kitty]

6. Who pays for it when foreign students go to school here?

Most of the time, it's their home country. They don't get saddled with massive debt like American students do.

[amborin]

9. yes

and in many cases, those foreign students are paying top dollar for their u.s. education, if they're 'out of state' or what not

but not always....

like the guy in the ny times sunday article....from india.....worked cleaning toilets while at harvard, from working class parents....

[xchrom]

5. the main thrust here is that people who come in with very little education

create jobs -- either by getting a better education while here or their children.

not h1b visa folk.

[amborin]

10. but some of those

mentioned in the article are h1b folks

and many articles point out that they do create more U.S. jobs

[xchrom]

4. recommend

[rockymountaindem]

7. I'm sure they do

but that doesn't make the H1-B system, as it currently exists, a justifiable program. If we're interested in having intelligent, entrepreneurial immigrants come to the US, I'm all for that, but letting them exist in citizenship limbo functioning essentially as guest workers so US corporations can pay them peanuts and undercut American workers is still a bad idea.

If we want the world's "best and brightest" to move here, which we do, let them get on the path to citizenship and start by paying them American-style wages.

[Hello_Kitty]

8. Yep.

And not just the super-smart and entrepreneurial immigrants either. Why should companies get away with paying people who pick fruit or flip burgers peanuts, since they're telling us they can't operate without importing workers? Really, it's a win-win. Paying immigrants a living wage would give them more money to send home (helping the economies there) and more to spend in the economy here. Funny how the supposed pro-immigration people don't see that. Most of them have drunk all the Chamber of Commerce koolaid about how businesses NEED low wage slaves guest workers to operate and how dare you suggest they are suppressing wages you xenophobe?!?1!