Work visas and return migration: how migration policy shapes global talent

ABSTRACT

The recruitment and retention of foreign talent are crucial dimensions of the global education and labour markets. This paper examines how entwined migration policies and corporate practices shape the development and flow of international skill. I pair an original dataset of employment histories with 105 interviews with skilled migrants and institutional actors to examine the process of skill and knowledge formation among foreign-born workers in the United States and return migrants in India. The findings show that employer-sponsored visas constrain the development of foreign skill and inefficiencies in the implementation of H-1B visas andgreen cards are contributing to return migration. Return migrants leave the United States with knowledge and skills in STEM and business that they developed while studying and working in the United States. At the same time, multinational employers are increasingly conceptualising migration experience as a skill, giving return migrants an advantage in their home labour markets. The findings of this paper illustrate how interactions between state and corporate institutions shape the process of skill formation throughout the migration journey.

KEYWORDS:

• Return migration
• migration policy
• skilled migration
• labour migration
• global talent flows

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 As with many social and temporal dynamics unfolding in real time, migrants can be considered permanent in the U.S. insofar as they have not yet returned to their country of origin; this can be considered an issue of right-censoring. In this paper, I use the term ‘permanent immigrant’ to describe those expressing permanent settlement intentions or who have obtained LPR status.

2 Return migrants are also bringing foreign credentials to the Indian labor market. See Zeng and Xie (2004) among others for the effect of foreign degrees on labor market outcomes in various country contexts.

3 Some return migrants never planned to stay in the United States long-term. Some moved temporarily through a work transfer for a specific project; others sought out U.S. degrees and labor market experience for the advantage it would give them in the Indian labor market.