Blueprint for International Talent

Categories:

The Talent Blueprint Project is a new initiative under development to make it easier for Northeast Ohio to attract international talent who can make the region more competitive.

But as is always the case when it comes to issues tied to immigration, this effort is being met with some resistance. Tom Breckenridge of the Plain Dealer provided an in-depth look at the effort this week.

The Talent Blueprint Project is shaping a strategy to attract foreign students, workers and entrepreneurs to the region. It is looking at similar efforts in Pennsylvania as potential role models.

Blueprint proponents – led by lawyer Richard Herman and the Cleveland Council on World Affairs are advocating local and national efforts that would make it easier and more attractive for skilled, foreign workers to call Northeast Ohio home.

Advocates emphasize that economic research shows that highly-skilled immigrants tend to start companies at a greater rater than others, and those companies create job opportunities for all residents. But some worry that the immigrants simply depress wages and take jobs from residents.

Northeast Ohio competes in a global economy and I believe that we should do what it takes to maximize our ability to be an effective competitor on that global stage, including increasing the number of residents (both home-grown and immigrant) with a global perspective. Are you interested in supporting Cleveland becoming more international?

Bookmark/Search this post with:
  • Delicious
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Magnoliacom
  • Newsvine
  • Furl
  • Google
  • Yahoo
  • Technorati
  • Icerocket

Trackback URL for this post:

http://www.advancenortheastohio.org/trackback/425

Comments

# Submitted by Antonio Barrios (not verified) on Tue, 07/15/2008 - 12:40.

I must admit I have not been able to follow the development of your group as closely as I would like to but it is very puzzeling to me to hear about this plan to attract foreign talent to Ohio. At the cost of sounding like a protectionist I wonder in the value of bringing in more foreign talent to displace our own home grown talent. Not too long ago efforts were being made to stop the brain drain of our college graduates because they were seeking greener pasture elsewhere, so now we need to fill that gap with foreign workers. I don't think that would be in the best interest of the citizens in our local area and for the state of Ohio. Question: Why aren't you spending our dollars on research of how to keep our own local talent home and how to attract American talent to our area. Do we think foreign talent is somehow better educated than our own or is it the Wal Mart syndrome of hiring cheap labor to cut cost and undermine the American worker. All this time and money spent on looking everywhere but here at our own people for the next generation of entrepreneurs is indeed a lack of confidence in our own ability to help pull this country out of the mess it is in now. And if you do attract talent,where are our kids going to go to find an opportunity. I don't think these foreign countries are hiring our talent. This move will undermine efforts to raise our children with the promise of an opportunity because it has been sold away.








		

		

			#
			Submitted by cthompson on Tue, 07/15/2008 - 14:34.		

		
Antonio,


Thank you for your comments. I want to be clear that the organization that supports this web site, the Fund for Our Economic Future, has not committed any resources to the effort to attract foreign talent. That effort is a separate initiative led by the people I identified in the above post. We think it is important that the region's residents be aware of such efforts, that is why we highlighted it. 


I would also like to make a couple of observations. Northeast Ohio has a brain gain problem, not a brain drain problem. Nearly every region loses a percentage of home-grown young talent. Last time I looked, our region was about at the national average in terms of percentage of young people leaving. However, growing regions are able to attract young people from other regions. That is brain gain and we don't perform there as well as we should. Attracting entrepreneurs inclined to build businesses -- which would employ residents -- would seem to be a positive. Does it matter if the entrepreneur was born in Indiana or India?

		

	











		

		

			#
			Submitted by Bill (not verified) on Fri, 07/18/2008 - 13:32.		

		
First, hats off to Advance Northeast Ohio.  Keep up the good work.


Here's a way to improve NE Ohio: require all graduates of Ohio high schools to have a minimal level of knowledge of economics.  Maybe then Ohioans would know good public policy from bad public policy.


One could easily argue that dumping non-skilled laborers into Ohio would hurt the job prospects of non-skilled laborers already in the state.  But this article refers to highly SKILLED workers.  They have SKILLS that are in demand and local employers are BEGGING for.


Bringing these workers in would help our local companies profit and stay local.  If they continue to have trouble bringing talent to the state, they'll re-locate to where the talent is.  But, if they can find skilled workers here, they'll stick around and grow our economy.  Success breads success.


So many economically ignorant people see the economy as a zero sum game: "There are X number of jobs to divy up among the people."  This backwards thinking keeps us from instituting positive reforms.


The reality is that the economy does NOT work like this.  Again, success breads success.  If Ohio is known for having talented, well-educated people, employers will flock to the state.  The FACT is that most people outside the state see Ohio as a rust-belt state full of unskilled, uneducated workers.  And the statistics confirm these impressions.


If talented people from ANYWHERE want to come to Ohio, by all means, COME.  I think this initiative is fine.  My only concern is that Ohio is a hard sell at this point and it might be more EFFICIENT to invest in educating/re-educating our workforce.  For example, trying to get our percentage of residents with a college degree up to, say, the national average.