研究：美国签证收紧只会迫使雇主在海外招工

美国政府进一步限制移民，还不断收紧签证政策，并声称此举将为美国人腾出数十万个工作岗位。然而恐怕要事与愿违了。新研究发现，收紧签证只会迫使企业在海外招工和设立办事处。

President Donald Trump has been trying to encourage firms to hire more American workers by increasing restrictions on visas for skilled foreign workers, including by suspending the H-1B visa program in June.

为了鼓励企业雇佣更多美国劳动者，特朗普总统一直在不断收紧外籍技术劳工签证，包括在六月暂停临时工作签证。

But a new study found that blocking out skilled labor actually encourages companies to move jobs abroad, where they can hire locally or more easily obtain a visa. That means more new jobs in countries like Canada, India, and China, not in the US, as president Donald Trump has claimed.

但是一项新研究发现，把技术劳工挡在国门外事实上会鼓励公司把职位迁至海外，在那里他们可以在当地招工或者更容易获得签证。这意味着在加拿大、印度、中国等国家会产生更多新职位，而不像特朗普总统声称的那样会给美国增加就业机会。

“It’s not that a company really only has two options, which is either hire an immigrant in the US or hire an American in the US,” said Britta Glennon, the National Bureau of Economic Research economist who wrote the study. “They actually have more options than that.”

该研究报告的作者、美国国家经济研究局的经济学家布丽塔·格伦农说：“企业并不是只有两种选择，要么在美国雇佣移民，要么在美国雇佣美国人。实际上他们有更多选择。”

Glennon looked at data from millions of H1-B applications and multinationals’ employment in foreign countries over a 10-year period to track whether less access to visas changed hiring practices. She found that it did, whether it was because the US lowered its annual visa cap (as it did in 2004,) or because visas became harder to get after US Citizenship and Immigration Services implemented a lottery system to grant them.

格伦农查看了十年间数百万临时工作签证的申请资料和跨国企业海外雇佣情况的追踪数据，以调查签证收紧是否改变招聘模式。她发现签证收紧确实改变了雇佣模式，无论是因为美国压低签证年度配额（2004年曾经这么做过），还是因为美国公民及移民局实施了摇号系统后签证变得更难获取。

When she looked at the lottery’s effects, for example, she found that for each visa application denied, companies created the equivalent of .3 jobs abroad, at least.

举例来说，当她查看摇号的影响后，她发现每拒绝一次签证申请，企业在海外的职位就会增加至少0.3个。

Companies in the tech sector were more likely to hire a foreign worker at their offices outside the US. They were also more likely to place those workers in Canada, which has less restrictive visa policies than the US, as well as India and China, where many of the hires were from.

技术行业的企业更可能在美国境外的办事处雇佣外国劳动者。他们更可能将这些劳工安置在加拿大，因为加拿大的签证政策没有美国的限制条件那么多，或者在印度和中国，因为许多劳工都来自这些国家。

When USCIS denied a visa to a prestigious MBA graduate from China or India, the company trying to hire them would often assign them to an auxiliary office in cities like Vancouver or Toronto.

当美国移民局拒绝了来自中国或印度的名校工商管理硕士研究生的签证后，试图雇佣这些人的企业通常会将他们安置在温哥华或多伦多等城市的下属办事处。

Some companies reacted by transferring entire teams or tasks abroad. “They would say, ‘Yeah, we just decided to open up a foreign affiliate in India because we got so tired of this whole process’.” she said.

一些公司的应对之策是将整个团队或任务迁至海外。她说：“他们会说，‘是的，我们刚决定在印度设立一个驻外办事处，因为我们烦透了所有这些流程。’”

She also saw a shift towards job candidates with master’s degrees to increase the chances of getting them a visa—there’s an additional cap of 20,000 for H1-B visas for applicants with advanced degrees.

她还发现雇主们转而招聘硕士学历的求职者以增加获得签证的几率，因为高学历者可以申请额外的2万个临时工作签证配额。

Though Glennon’s analysis focused on past changes to visa policies, her research suggests the same situation is true now that US government restrictions on foreign workers are even tighter.

尽管格伦农的分析主要集中在过去的签证政策变动上面，但她的研究表明，如今美国政府对外籍劳工的签证限制更加严格，同样的情况还会发生。

By blocking immigration, the US misses out on other benefits, like new patents, additional foreign investment, and new jobs in highly-skilled fields, Glennon said. Research has also shown immigrants are much more likely to start new companies compared to Americans—nearly half of Fortune 500 firms were founded by an immigrant or a child of one—and are more often “job creators” than “job takers.”

格伦农称，通过阻止外来移民，美国错失了其他福利，比如新专利、更多的外国投资和高技能领域的新职位。研究还显示，相比美国人，移民在美国创业的可能性要大得多——财富500强的公司中近半是由移民或移民后代创办的——移民往往更多的是“就业创造者”而不是“求职者”。

Glennon said a better policy to help Americans get jobs would be through additional investments in education. “Make sure that Americans have the right set of skills,” she said. “It’s a much more sensible way to go about this than trying to block skilled workers from other countries. The reason why they’re getting hired is because companies can’t find Americans to do those jobs.”

格伦农说，帮助美国人就业的更好政策应该是对教育加大投入。她说：“确保美国人有充分的技能，这个方法相比阻止其他国家的技术劳工进入要合理得多。外籍劳工被雇佣的原因是企业找不到能胜任这些工作的美国人。”