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> "In South Korea, Spain and Switzerland, 80% of permanent visas are used for employment. For Britain, Germany and Italy, it's 60%. For the U.S., it's only 7%.
by potatolicious 14y ago
> "In South Korea, Spain and Switzerland, 80% of permanent visas are used for employment. For Britain, Germany and Italy, it's 60%. For the U.S., it's only 7%. For a skilled worker, it's actually harder to come to America."
As a Canadian expat in the US, dear God is this ever true.
The US doesn't have a skilled immigration program. It has a work visa moonlighting as immigration policy. Any reform of the H-1B program is IMO just band-aids - what the US needs is an actual immigration track for skilled people in the same vein as Canada and Australia.
I guess it's a moot point in our industry though. The tech industry in the US so massively out-pays every other country, and out-performs, that most of us will jump through an awful lot of hoops to be here. For me going back home would mean a 60% pay cut and a life writing bad Java code for big banks.
- pm90 14y agoIf I recall correctly, EB1 and EB2 visas are skill-based immigration visas. IMO H1-B serves the purpose of allowing skilled workers temporarily in the US
- justanotheratom 14y agoEB1/EB2 are not Visas, they are Green Card filing categories. You typically file for EB1/EB2 while you are on H1-B.
- pm90 14y agoThanks for pointing that out. But the point that I'm making still holds: there does exist a program to allow skilled immigrants to enter the US
- sonabinu 14y agoThe path to permanent residency is however pretty slow. If you are from India or China and your filing is in the EB3 category, at the rate things are moving now it could take upto 50 yrs
- jgh 14y agoAlthough this Immigration Innovation act that's going around will apparently get rid of the per-country limitation, meaning the entire world will get to enjoy multi-decade wait times and not just China and India.
- smsm42 14y agoComparing such things needs to be done carefully. The fact that for US this percentage is lower may also mean US issues a real lot on non-employment-based immigrant visas and Switzerland does not. I.e. not that it is hard for skilled worker to come to America (I personally don't think it's actually much harder than for other developed countries) but it's probably easier for non-skilled one.