Saturday, February 11, 2012

The Trouble With Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is too dependent on talent migration. The same is true for Portland, Oregon. The Financial Post sees the same problem in Canada:

Canadians have long taken for granted that a constant stream of skilled foreign workers dream of the opportunity to immigrate here.

The country’s growth model is essentially built on that assumption.

But as the world economic order shuffles, so do the opportunities for mobile talent.

“They are not lining up,” said Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist at CIBC World Markets. “We’ve got to wake up to this realization.”

That's just the introduction to an article that details a crisis in the making, a slow motion demographic train wreck. Increasingly, immigrants are returning home and enticing others to stay. From the BBC:

Hugo Stevens is part of a new generation of innovators in Mexico. Young and well educated, he is choosing to develop his career in Mexico City rather than take his expertise abroad. ...

... Mr Stevens feels the need for young people to leave Mexico is no longer so acute. He says Mexican internet companies are in same stage some of the big Silicon Valley companies were barely a decade ago.

This emerging talent crisis is not something that progressive immigration reform can solve. In fact, it makes the situation worse. What happens if (when) the talent supply dries up?

No comments: