U.S. companies are thinking twice about hiring foreign tech workers amid uncertainty about immigration policies from the Trump administration, according to data released Wednesday by job searching site Hired.
The number of interview requests from U.S. companies to foreign tech workers dropped by 60 percent between the second and fourth quarter of 2016. Interest in hiring foreign tech workers ticked back up after the presidential election, but it was still down 37 percent in the second quarter of 2017 compared to the same period last year.
Foreign tech workers were also less interested in applying to U.S. jobs after the presidential election. From the third and fourth quarter of 2016, the rate at which foreign workers accepted interview requests from U.S. firms dropped by 4 percentage points.
Hired said the decline was “likely the result of uncertainty around immigration policies” following the presidential election.
“It’s clear that the U.S. remains an attractive place to work for tech talent from around the world,” wrote Lindsey Scott, who heads Hired’s communication team, in a blog post about the study. “What’s less clear is whether we’ll be able to welcome them to work among us.”
Hired, which has nearly 10,000 participating companies and 1.5 million job seekers, said it examined more than 175,000 interview requests and job offers from the past year.
The findings didn’t surprise the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, a public policy trade association that represents hundreds of employers in the region.
“You have an administration that’s still evolving its immigration policy, and as a result, it’s creating an environment where immigrants with tech talent very well might be incentivized to go other places,” said Peter Leroe-Muñoz, vice-president of technology and innovation policy for the the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.
Companies need to continue to be forceful and public advocates for increasing the number of H-1B visas, but also promoting immigration reform, he said.
“I think the potential employees who are overseas need to see that the leaders of innovation in our country and the economy are working on bringing them and making this a more inviting place,” Leroe-Muñoz said.
Tech companies, including in Silicon Valley, have clashed with the Trump administration over its immigration policies.
They’ve spoken out against the president’s executive order that barred visitors from six Muslim-majority countries. The Supreme Court, though, allowed parts of the ban to move forward.
The Trump administration also recently delayed a “startup visa” program that allowed immigrants to stay in the United States while they grow their companies.
And while the tech industry wants to bring in more foreign workers through the H-1B visa program, Trump signed an executive order in April to ensure that companies use the visa to hire the “the most-skilled or highest-paid” applicants.
Hired, which surveyed 362 tech workers nationwide, found that 55 percent agreed that there is not enough tech talent in the United States given the demand, but nearly half also don’t think the current structure of the H-1B visa program is working.
The tech workers surveyed were from the San Francisco Bay Area, Austin, Seattle, Chicago, Denver, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and San Diego, Hired told SiliconBeat.
Since the election, 40 percent of the workers also considered relocating to another location. Canada was the top choice, followed by Germany, Asia and Australia.
Peter Boogaard, communications director at FWD.us, a tech-backed immigration lobbying group, said that anecdotally he’s heard from international entrepreneurs and students wary of coming to the United States.
The solution, he said, isn’t to roll back legal immigration.
“Let’s reform the system so that we can attract the best and brightest talent,” he said, “and continue to be a place where internet entrepreneurs want to come and build and grow businesses.”