The U.S. remains the most sought-after place to work for workers worldwide.
Germany has overtaken the U.K. for the No. 2 spot behind the U.S. as the most popular destination for foreign workers, according to a study released this week by the Boston Consulting Group and The Network, an online recruiting company.
Of those survey respondents who indicated that they would be willing to move to another country for work, 34% indicated that they would be willing to move to the U.S., 26% said they would relocate to Germany, 20% said they would be willing to relocate to the U.K.
The U.S. is the top destination for people in Latin America, the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. President Trump’s promise to build a wall on the southern border has, however, had an effect. In 2014, the U.S. was the top work destination abroad for Mexicans. In the latest report, the U.S. is No. 2 behind Canada.
The American economy has been on an upward swing. The unemployment rate in the U.S. hit a 17- year low of 3.9% in May. With President Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, there is a growing concern among some economists that there may not be enough domestic U.S. workers to fill the jobs immigrants would have otherwise taken.
Globalization and remote working has made it less necessary to move abroad. Europe’s refugee crisis, Asia’s economic rise and Eastern Europe’s economic revitalization have all affected the “global map of mobility,” the report found.
When the Boston Consulting Group study was last conducted four years ago, more workers worldwide were willing to work abroad. Since then, the number of workers willing to work abroad has decreased by seven percentage points, according to the study, which surveyed 366,000 workers in 197 countries.
However, Germany’s relative openness to immigration and high perceived political stability post-Brexit has led to its increased appeal among foreign workers, the Boston Consulting Group study concluded. Indeed, the U.S. is no longer the most popular destination for workers from India, Mexico and the U.K.
Another recent study by French researchers found that asylum seekers had a positive economic impact on European Union countries over a 30-year period.
The increase in migrants has had a positive effect on the German economy, according to a report by Movinga, a German-based moving company. German states with the highest proportion of foreign workers also have the lowest unemployment rates, it found.
The unemployment rate in Germany recently hit 5.2% in May, the lowest rate since German reunification in 1990. Nevertheless, German leader Angela Merkel is under pressure from other European leaders over an open-door policy to immigration that has led to 1 million migrants entering that country over the past three years.
