Affected by the epidemic, many international technology and talent exchange activities have been carried out from offline to online, which objectively provides new opportunities for the flow of international intelligence in virtual spaces. Although it is difficult for talents to migrate internationally in the physical space during the epidemic, the frequency of international intelligence flows in the virtual space has increased significantly. For example, the average daily user volume of Zoom, an online conference platform, has dramatically increased from 10 million in December 2019 to 200 million in March 2020. At the same time, some internationally renowned universities also announced that they will implement remote teaching for foreign students who cannot arrive in the United States in the fall semester of 2020.
This report is jointly researched and compiled by the Globalization Think Tank (CCG) and the Development Research Institute of Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, and published by the Social Sciences Literature Press. It aims to provide a diverse perspective on the current status and trends of international population migration and the immigration policy trends of the world’s major immigration destination countries. Conducted research and looked forward to the development of migration in the world in the post-epidemic era.
The overall growth rate of international migration has slowed
The data in the report shows that the overall growth rate of international migration has slowed down, with frequent migration within the region. The growth rate of international migration in 2019 further dropped to the 2005 level, at 9.15%. Many OECD countries (the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, etc.) have seen a significant decline in the number of immigrants who have obtained permanent residence. The population migrates frequently in the region. In 2019, the total number of migrants in each continent is about 143 million, accounting for about 52.6% of the total number of international migrants, an increase of 12.3% compared to 2015, which is higher than the overall growth rate of international migrants.
The number of immigrant labor continues to grow, and the trend of geographic concentration is obvious. The International Labor Organization estimates that there were approximately 164 million migrant workers worldwide in 2017, accounting for 64% of the international migrant stock, and labor migration to OECD countries continued to increase, with a year-on-year increase of 6% in 2017. About 111 million labor immigrants went to high-income countries, accounting for 67.9%, a decrease of 6.8 percentage points. This is related to the continuous tightening of labor immigration policies in high-income countries represented by the United States and the United Kingdom in recent years. The shortage of labor in the outgoing countries, the remittance of overseas Chinese will form a certain economic compensation.
Family migration is still the main channel for permanent migration, but the scale has shrunk slightly. The report shows that in 2017, there were about 2 million family immigrants and family-accompanied immigrants who flowed into OECD countries, accounting for up to 41%; followed by free movement (28%), humanitarian (14%), and labor (11%). . With the overall tightening of immigration policies in major countries, immigration approval procedures for family reunions have become stricter, and the scale of immigration has begun to shrink slightly. In 2017, the number of family immigrants in the United States fell by 6%, while New Zealand, Ireland, Norway, and South Korea fell by 22%, 20%, 7%, and 5%, respectively. Compared with labor immigrants, the social contribution of family immigrants is often lower, which is mainly reflected in the relatively low employment rate and market salary level.
The international immigration management system has achieved certain results, and the effect of inter-regional coordination mechanisms is still limited. The Global Compact on Migration helps countries develop effective immigration response mechanisms and coordination methods. Regional agreements such as the “East African Common Market Protocol” have promoted the free flow of labor and economic development between regions. The rise of far-right forces in Europe has led to the withdrawal of many countries from the Global Compact on Immigration, and the reduction in the number of recipients of IOM’s AVRR project (12% in the same period in 2018).
The talent war is getting fierce
The report shows that the policies of the world’s major immigration destinations are converging. The “talent war” has become increasingly fierce, and the policy of introducing intelligence has been escalated.
For example, Japan has established “Highly Specialized Occupation No. 1 and No. 2” visas for high-level talents, and further expanded the introduction of high-level talents through the establishment of a high-level talent points system; Japan reduced high-level talents by adjusting points standards and adding additional points. Talent qualification threshold; relax visa requirements; quickly obtain permanent residence (over 70 points for 3 years, 80 points or more for 1 year); complete ahead of schedule the introduction of 20,000 high-level talents by the end of 2022 as proposed in the “Future Investment Strategy 2017” The goal of talent.
In the United Kingdom, the annual issuance limit for talent visas is abolished, and the restriction that talent visa applicants must determine their employment destinations before arriving in the UK; the introduction of global talent visas, entrepreneurial visas and innovator visas; global talent visa holders work 3-5 You can apply for permanent residency every year; the new visa puts higher requirements on the applicant’s English proficiency, reflecting the UK’s desire for entrepreneurial talents to better integrate into the local area.
Most EU member states successively revised their laws from 2018 to 2019 to relax the conditions for non-EU scientific researchers and students to move within EU member states: among them, Spain, Portugal and other countries have simplified the application of temporary residence for non-EU international students receiving higher education in their own countries. In the process of permits and work visas, Sweden and other countries have announced the relaxation of restrictions on the issuance of residence permits for research and higher education personnel; Spain, Italy, Denmark, France and other countries provide visa and incubator support for foreign entrepreneurs.
The United States transferred the green card quota to professional immigrants, increasing the proportion of high-skilled immigrants from 12% to 57%; set up an immigration points system, based on the applicant’s age, diploma, skill level and other indicators to evaluate the corresponding scores, and issue green cards based on the merits; The High-Skilled Immigration Fairness Act of 2019 attracts scientific and technological talents.
Significant growth in the stock of immigrants to Europe
In 2019, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs released a report on the global stock of international migrants, showing that mainland China has become the world’s third-largest migrant exporting country with approximately 10.7323 million migrants. The growth rate of Asia as the main source of output has slowed down significantly, from 7.36% in 2010-2015 to 0.16% in 2015-2019. At the same time, North America, as a traditional immigration destination, its growth rate over the same period also showed a significant decline, from 30.95% to 8.09%.
The United States, Japan, and Canada are still the main destination countries for immigration, and the stock of immigrants from Singapore has plummeted. In terms of the distribution of destination countries, except for the 2,272,300 who moved to Hong Kong from China and 297,600 who moved to Macau, the composition of the top 20 destination countries for immigrants from China in 2019 did not change significantly, and the United States accounted for 2,889,200 people. The top spot is followed by 784,800 people in Japan and 691,500 people in Canada. A review of the top 20 destination countries for immigrant exports shows that 13 of them are developed countries and 7 are developing countries. The proportion of developed countries is slightly higher than that of developing countries. The top 20 destination countries for immigrants from mainland China in 2015 and 2019 are shown in the table below.
According to the Open Door Report of the United States in 2019, the number of Chinese students studying in the United States in the 2018-2019 academic year reached 369,548, accounting for 33.7% of the total number of international students, and continued to be the largest country of origin for international students; and according to the “Report on British Students in 2019” “The total number of Chinese mainland students studying in the UK reached 106,000, accounting for 23.2% of the total number of international students in the UK, an increase of 12%, making it the largest source country. The trend of gradual expansion of the scale of studying abroad at younger ages is becoming more apparent. The number of Chinese students enrolling in high schools in the United States has increased by 98.6 times in the past ten years, which is much higher than 14 times the undergraduate level. It can be seen that the enthusiasm for studying abroad is not receding, and the trend of younger immigrants is emerging.
Due to the impact of US immigration policy, Chinese investment immigration to the US has declined rapidly in recent years, and the proportion of visas has continued to decline. Although from the perspective of the EB-5 visa category (investment immigration) in professional immigration, China has been the main source country for this category of visas for a long time. According to the statistics of the US Visa Annual Report, in 2019, the number of people who obtained EB-5 visas in China was 3,894, which is the “five consecutive decline” since 2015, and its proportion of similar visas in the United States has further “shrunk”. “, from 86.81% in 2015 to 49.36% in 2019.
The Global Taxation (CRS) plan may affect the flow and method of high-net-worth investment immigrants. With the continuous advancement of the CRS global taxation plan, high-asset immigrants will be more cautious in the global allocation of assets and the selection of immigration regions. Low-tax and non-CRS countries have attracted more and more attention, and they have become important for the reasonable tax avoidance of emerging high-net-worth investment immigrant groups. select.
In addition, due to the rapid growth in the scale of immigration services, professional transformation is also imminent. In recent years, the rapid growth of Chinese immigrants has led to the vigorous development of the immigration and study abroad intermediary industries. At present, traditional immigration services mainly focus on policy consultation, application operation and investment consulting. However, with the tightening of policies in Western immigrant countries represented by the United States and the ever-increasing degree of information transparency, the immigration service industry will inevitably face new challenges. The traditional model of creating service content with the help of immigrant information asymmetry will gradually be eliminated, and the whole chain of services and the form of professional consultants will become a new development trend.
