IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aim/wpaimx/1934.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Looking for the "Best and Brightest": Hiring difficulties and high-skilled foreign workers

Author

Abstract

This paper shows that firms' demand for high-skilled foreign workers partly results from their hiring difficulties. Relying on a within-firm identification strategy, I compare recruitment decisions made by a given employer for similar jobs differing in recruitment difficulties. I quantify how the time to fill a vacancy affects the employer's probability to look for recruiting a foreign worker. To identify this relationship, I have collected and assembled a new and original dataset at the job level. It matches online job postings to administrative data on H-1B visas applications in the US. I find that a standard deviation increase in job posting duration increases employers' probability to look for a foreign worker by 1.5 percentage points. This effect is mainly driven by firms sending only a few visa applications. It increases to 3 to 4 percentage points for architects, engineers and computer scientists.

Suggested Citation

  • Morgan Raux, 2019. "Looking for the "Best and Brightest": Hiring difficulties and high-skilled foreign workers," AMSE Working Papers 1934, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    • Handle: RePEc:aim:wpaimx:1934
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.amse-aixmarseille.fr/sites/default/files/working_papers/wp_2019_-_nr_34.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Deming & Lisa B. Kahn, 2018. "Skill Requirements across Firms and Labor Markets: Evidence from Job Postings for Professionals," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 337-369.
    2. Giovanni Peri & Kevin Shih & Chad Sparber, 2015. "Foreign and Native Skilled Workers: What Can We Learn from H-1B Lotteries?," NBER Working Papers 21175, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. José Azar & Emiliano Huet & Ioana Marinescu & Bledi Taska & Till von, 2024. "Minimum Wage Employment Effects and Labour Market Concentration," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(4), pages 1843-1883.
    4. David J. Deming & Kadeem L. Noray, 2018. "STEM Careers and the Changing Skill Requirements of Work," NBER Working Papers 25065, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr & William F. Lincoln, 2015. "Firms and the Economics of Skilled Immigration," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 115-152.
    6. Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr & William F. Lincoln, 2015. "Skilled Immigration and the Employment Structures of US Firms," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(S1), pages 147-186.
    7. Marinescu, Ioana, 2017. "The general equilibrium impacts of unemployment insurance: Evidence from a large online job board," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 14-29.
    8. Lofstrom, Magnus & Hayes, Joseph, 2011. "H-1Bs: How Do They Stack Up to US Born Workers?," IZA Discussion Papers 6259, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Chad Sparber, 2015. "The Value of H-1B Status in Times of Scarcity," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1510, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    10. Azar, José & Marinescu, Ioana & Steinbaum, Marshall & Taska, Bledi, 2020. "Concentration in US labor markets: Evidence from online vacancy data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. Mayda, Anna Maria & Ortega, Francesc & Peri, Giovanni & Shih, Kevin & Sparber, Chad, 2018. "The effect of the H-1B quota on the employment and selection of foreign-born labor," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 105-128.
    12. Sunil Mithas & Henry C. Lucas, Jr., 2010. "Are Foreign IT Workers Cheaper? U.S. Visa Policies and Compensation of Information Technology Professionals," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(5), pages 745-765, May.
    13. Arnaud Cheron & Bruno Decreuse, 2017. "Matching with Phantoms," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(3), pages 1041-1070.
    14. Ioana Marinescu & Roland Rathelot, 2018. "Mismatch Unemployment and the Geography of Job Search," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 42-70, July.
    15. Pissarides, Christopher A, 1974. "Risk, Job Search, and Income Distribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1255-1267, Nov.-Dec..
    16. Kory Kroft & Devin G. Pope, 2014. "Does Online Search Crowd Out Traditional Search and Improve Matching Efficiency? Evidence from Craigslist," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(2), pages 259-303.
    17. Peter Kuhn & Hani Mansour, 2014. "Is Internet Job Search Still Ineffective?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(581), pages 1213-1233, December.
    18. Burt S. Barnow & John Trutko & Jaclyn Schede Piatak, 2013. "Occupational Labor Shortages: Concepts, Causes, Consequences, and Cures," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number ols.
    19. Katharine G. Abraham, 2015. "Is Skill Mismatch Impeding U.S. Economic Recovery?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 68(2), pages 291-313, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Morgan Raux, 2019. "Looking for the "Best and Brightest": Hiring difficulties and high-skilled foreign workers," Working Papers halshs-02364921, HAL.
    2. He, Chuan & Mau, Karsten & Xu, Mingzhi, 2021. "Trade Shocks and Firms Hiring Decisions: Evidence from Vacancy Postings of Chinese Firms in the Trade War," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    3. Azar, José & Alekseeva, Liudmila & Gine, Mireia & Samila, Sampsa & Taska, Bledi, 2020. "The Demand for AI Skills in the Labor Market," CEPR Discussion Papers 14320, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Hayato Kanayama & Suguru Otani, 2024. "Nonparametric Estimation of Matching Efficiency and Elasticity in a Spot Gig Work Platform: 2019-2023," Papers 2412.19024, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2025.
    5. repec:osf:socarx:p82fk_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. R. Jason Faberman & Marianna Kudlyak, 2016. "What Does Online Job Search Tell Us about the Labor Market?," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue 1, pages 1-15.
    7. Suguru Otani, 2024. "Nonparametric Estimation of Matching Efficiency and Elasticity on a Private On-the-Job Search Platform: Evidence from Japan, 2014-2024," Papers 2410.17011, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2025.
    8. Bhole, Monica & Fradkin, Andrey & Horton, John, 2021. "Information About Vacancy Competition Redirects Job Search," SocArXiv p82fk, Center for Open Science.
    9. Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr & William F. Lincoln, 2015. "Skilled Immigration and the Employment Structures of US Firms," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(S1), pages 147-186.
    10. Brancatelli,Calogero & Marguerie,Alicia Charlene & Koettl-Brodmann,Stefanie, 2020. "Job Creation and Demand for Skills in Kosovo : What Can We Learn from Job Portal Data?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9266, The World Bank.
    11. Lennart Ziegler, 2020. "Skill Demand and Posted Wages. Evidence from Online Job Ads in Austria," Vienna Economics Papers vie2002, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    12. Michèle Belot & Philipp Kircher & Paul Muller, 2022. "How Wage Announcements Affect Job Search—A Field Experiment," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 1-67, October.
    13. Michèle Belot & Philipp Kircher & Paul Muller, 2019. "Providing Advice to Jobseekers at Low Cost: An Experimental Study on Online Advice," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(4), pages 1411-1447.
    14. Briggs Depew & Peter Norlander & Todd A. Sørensen, 2017. "Inter-firm mobility and return migration patterns of skilled guest workers," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 681-721, April.
    15. Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr, 2018. "Global Collaborative Patents," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(612), pages 235-272, July.
    16. Evelyn Vezza & Zunino,Gonzalo & Laguinge,Luis & Harry Edmund Moroz & Ignacio Raul Apella & Marla Hillary Spivack, 2025. "Understanding Labor Market Demand in Real Time in Argentina and Uruguay," Policy Research Working Paper Series 11086, The World Bank.
    17. He, Chuan & Mau, Karsten & Xu, Mingzhi, 2021. "Trade Shocks and Firms Hiring Decisions:," Research Memorandum 001, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    18. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2017_003 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Ziegler, Lennart, 2021. "Skill Demand and Wages. Evidence from Linked Vacancy Data," IZA Discussion Papers 14511, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Mehra, Mishita & Kim, Daisoon, 2023. "Skilled immigration, offshoring, and trade," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    21. William R. Kerr, 2013. "U.S. High-Skilled Immigration, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship: Empirical Approaches and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 19377, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Sparber, Chad, 2019. "Substitution between groups of highly-educated, foreign-born, H-1B workers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    H-1B work permit; hiring difficulties; web scraping;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aim:wpaimx:1934. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Gregory Cornu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/amseafr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.