Immigration of competent human resources

Steve Jobs, who gave rise to Apple, a corporation with the highest ranking total global market value, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, and Elon Musk of TESLR, who became the “icon of innovation,” are all immigrants. Jobs was from Syria and Brin is the son of a Russian descent immigrant while Musk is from the Republic of South America.

According to the a Center for American Entrepreneurship (CAE) of “Top 500 US Corporations in 2017” designated by Fortune, approximately 43 percent of major businesses in the United States are founded by first and second-generation immigrants. The survey results also show that 46 of conglomerates in the IT industry have been established by immigrants. Contribution of immigrants is conspicuously higher in the IT sector and large businesses. In 1965, as former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson revised the Immigration Act and abolished discriminations against immigrants, the United States started receiving highly qualified people in the science field and became the strongest nation in the scientific industry of the world.

China’s project called the “Thousand Talents Plan,” which intends to recruit highly qualified human resources of Chinese descent scattered in various parts of the world back to China, also draws much attention. This is very contrasting from U.S. President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrants policy. For example, if a professor who majored in science or technology goes back to China, he or she will receive 150,000 U.S. dollars (170million won) as bonus. The plan, which set its goal to recruit 1,000 professionals in 2008, has drawn 6,000 talented people in the field of science, technology and state-of-the-art technology. China’s plan to recover outflow of talented people has been reaping fruitful results.

On Saturday, Bank of Korea released a report specifying that Korea needs to increase the inflow of foreign labor force and immigrants in high added value fields. The central bank pointed out that Koreans, who lack technical skills, will lose their jobs to foreign laborers if it focuses on cheap foreign labor and foreign workers will also suffer from low incoming, forming a vicious cycle. The working-age population is rapidly decreasing due to low birth rate and aging population. Korea should also come up with even a “plan to foster 100,000” foreign experts. It is worth reviewing policies of other countries, such as France, Germany and Australia. These countries help foreign talents, whom they provide state-funded study program, to settle down in their countries.