By Angelo A. Paparelli

Demographics don’t lie. Populations in the developed world are aging rapidly, especially in Europe, Japan and Russia. To a lesser but still pronounced degree, the ratio of older to younger citizens is also projected to increase in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea. At the same time, the global market for knowledge workers, especially in the STEM fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, is growing ever hotter with no cool-down in sight. More troubling still, China, India and other fast-rising global competitors with sizable populations are producing STEM graduates with Masters and PhDs, and submitting patent applications, at a more rapid pace than the world’s perennial leader, the United States.

The trend lines of these forces are ominous. Increasingly, globally competitive businesses must broaden the recruiting search beyond national borders if they are to secure the brightest and best workers. As new, more demanding jobs are created, will your recruiting team find and hire the best of a globally scarce lot? One essential way to prepare your company’s recruiters is to confirm that the team makes optimal use of employment-based options under U.S. and foreign immigration laws. Another equally important measure is to provide recruiters with the training and resources required to avoid the many mission-killing snares of global migration. (more…)