Opinion: The US has been replaced as the land of opportunity for tech talent

Photo credit: nicoletaionescu / 123RF Stock Photo.

We’re in the midst of a tech talent crisis worldwide, and American companies should be worried about losing their edge as a desirable place to live and work for tech talent.

Having just moved across the pond to one of the most tech-savvy countries in the world—Estonia—I am amazed by how outmoded US government technology and immigration is—especially as the home of Silicon Valley. Well-known as the most influential tech hub for over 50 years and the home of giants such as Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, Silicon Valley alone has an incessant need to fill tech jobs.

Rival Silicon Valleys such as Austin, Seattle, and even Denver may offer lower costs of living, but even they can’t fill all the open tech jobs despite their better quality of life and lower economic indexes. With the US government cracking down ever harder on H-1B visas and immigration, how long will it take before the most sought-after talent from abroad stops considering the US at all?

Can’t America just produce all its own tech talent?

Perhaps we could if we changed the school system and did what Code.org suggests: give every child the option to learn computer science in US schools. However, America is so far behind other developed countries in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), that even if we started training kids right now, it would take decades to fill the homegrown tech job funnel.

PISA, a global study on student aptitudes for math, science, and reading, ranked the US an unimpressive 38th out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science in their 2015 results. If you stack these sobering statistics against the fact that computing occupations are now the #1 source of new wages in America, we are in deep trouble when it comes to internally supplying all our own tech talent now and in the future.

America might be in for the tech talent competition of its life

It’s no news that the Trump administration subjected six countries (down from seven) to an immigration ban. While this latest executive order is battling it out in the courts, it’s already wreaked havoc and downright panic in the tech recruiting fields.

Iran, a major source of top tech talent across the US, is one of the countries the President singled out. And while Iran isn’t the only country supplying tech talent in the country, the attempted ban has suddenly made the best talent, the talent that America easily won over in the past, start to look elsewhere to make their dreams come true.

Not only those from banned countries but current US immigrants with green cards or naturalized citizens from these countries have become afraid to travel. The precedent has been set at the border too many times now; many of these immigrants have been denied entry when they tried to return to the US from visits overseas.

The New America has disrupted the tech talent market in ways yet to be realized

America has always branded itself as the place for anyone with a dream or a desire to make it big. Tagline: “The land of opportunity.” We’ve always said we’re a nation built by immigrants—perhaps even the most multiracial immigrant society of its kind.

This incredible mix of people, races, creeds, and cultures created a kind of melting pot of big ideas and industriousness. Working hard and building stuff makes us proud. Even if we haven’t been the land of opportunity for all, just the myth of it seems to make people strive a little bit harder and dream a little bit bigger.

The New America that is now forming—or that some are trying to build—is not welcoming. It’s a country whose borders are not only social but also increasingly physical. It seems to be shrinking into itself. This is beginning to affect how the top skilled professions from abroad make their decisions on where to go.

Do they go to a country that is slowly shutting itself off from the world or to countries where your skills are wanted no matter your passport? America has started to fall out of favor.

The competition

If your first choice for immigration used to be the US but now you’re not so sure, you’re most likely going to pick somewhere similar. To me, that sure looks like Europe (Brexit not included as it’s too similar to what’s going on in America).