On Wednesday, job search site, Hired, released data that shows companies in the US are having second thoughts about hiring overseas tech workers, given the uncertainty over the future of current immigration policies under the Trump administration.
US firms issuing requests for interviews to foreign technology workers fell by as much as 60 percent between the second and fourth quarters of 2016. Interest increased following Trump’s election, but the figures in this year’s second quarter are still 37 percent lower than in the corresponding period last year. The decline is probably the consequence of uncertainty surrounding US immigration policies, according to Hired. Overseas tech workers are also less inclined to apply for jobs in the US following last year’s Presidential election. The number of acceptances of requests for interviews from US firms by foreign workers also fell by four percent.
Hired has almost 1.5 million people looking for work, as well as 10,000 participating firms, and says that it looked at over 175,000 job offers and interview requests during the last year. Tech firms, including those in Silicon Valley, have been at odds with President Donald Trump over the immigration policies pursued by his administration.
Recently, a start-up US visa program enabling foreign entrepreneurs to live in the US while expanding their businesses was delayed by the Trump administration. In April, the President signed an executive order to ensure that firms using the H-1B US visa program only hire the highest-paid or best-skilled applicants.