iAn Brinkley
Director of the Knowledge Economy programme, The Work Foundation
the migration of skilled workers has been critical for the Uk’s Where it can work to the advantage of both sides is in
economy over the past 10-15 years at least. there are three the short term, if someone came for a few years and gained
channels through which skilled labour has contributed to the experience, built up their skills and then went back home. You
growth of the economy. can see how that could help the economy on both sides. the
first, highly skilled migrants are coming to the Uk from problem, however, is one of scale. if very large numbers are
overseas, where by and large the education quality has been draining away, that can’t be good for a country’s economy.
higher than the native population in the Uk. this has been And if people decide to make a long-term future in the new
boosting average skill levels rather than pushing them down. country, then that’s a permanent loss of quite skilled and
second, there are people coming into the Uk via talented people from the exporting economy. the question
universities, particularly people who continue on to do then becomes whether a country can sustain that movement
their phd, and many of them will stay in the Uk economy over a long period of time.
afterwards. We’re one of the most attractive countries in the the basic hypothesis of our research into the knowledge
oeCd for foreign students. economy is that the movement of skilled labour is a key driver
the third route is transfer within multinational in this new economic reality. one of the reasons the Uk has
companies. these don’t tend to be picked up in the done relatively well in knowledge-based areas over the past 10
official migration statistics; when foreign companies move years is precisely because it has pursued very liberal migration
staff across international borders, it counts as something policies. the fact that it is relatively easy for skilled people
else. given the amount of employment and investment to come in and out of the Uk has been one of the great
associated with foreign investment, and given the greater underlying drivers. if you look at areas where we’ve done
mobility of highly skilled labour, that must be becoming really well, it’s been in the international trade of knowledge
a much more important route, though it’s difficult to pin services. A lot of that has been driven by fairly mobile
down the total numbers. multinational companies, big fdi flows and so on. And much
38 of course, the kind of people we want to attract from of it has been accompanied by the free movement of labour,
developing countries are not necessarily the best people or the free movement of ideas and knowledge. on both of
from the point of view of the developing country itself. those levels, it has been a very important component.
they would like to export their unskilled labour to us, the danger is if you move towards much more restrictive
whereas we’d like to import their skilled labour. policies, you may start to cut off some of that supply.
“the bAsiC hYpothesis of oUr
reseArCh iNto the knoWledge
economy is thAt this movemeNt
of skIlled labour is A key drIver
iN this NeW eCoNomiC reAlitY” ian brinkley
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