IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jpamgt/v38y2019i1p41-64.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Restricted is the Job Mobility of Skilled Temporary Work Visa Holders?

Author

Listed:
  • Jennifer Hunt
  • Bin Xie

Abstract

Using the National Survey of College Graduates, we investigate the job mobility of skilled workers holding U.S. temporary visas. Such workers either have legal restrictions on their ability to change employers or may be reluctant to leave an employer who has sponsored them for permanent residence. We find that the voluntary job‐changing rate is similar for temporary work visa holders and natives with similar characteristics, but that it spikes when temporary work visa holders obtain permanent residence. The spike magnitude implies mobility is reduced during the application period by about 20 percent, alleviating concerns that employers exercise strong monopsony power.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennifer Hunt & Bin Xie, 2019. "How Restricted is the Job Mobility of Skilled Temporary Work Visa Holders?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(1), pages 41-64, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:38:y:2019:i:1:p:41-64
    DOI: 10.1002/pam.22110
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22110
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/pam.22110?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Gary Solon & Steven J. Haider & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2015. "What Are We Weighting For?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 301-316.
    3. Michael A. Clemens, 2013. "Why Do Programmers Earn More in Houston Than Hyderabad? Evidence from Randomized Processing of US Visas," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 198-202, May.
    4. Norman Matloff, 2013. "Immigration and the tech industry: As a labour shortage remedy, for innovation, or for cost savings?," Migration Letters, Migration Letters, vol. 10(2), pages 210-227, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. How Restricted is the Job Mobility of Skilled Temporary Work Visa Holders?
      by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog on 2017-08-11 17:40:46

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sharma, Rishi & Sparber, Chad, 2020. "Buying Lottery Tickets for Foreign Workers: Search Cost Externalities Induced by H-1B Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 13892, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Stephen G. Dimmock & Jiekun Huang & Scott J. Weisbenner, 2022. "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your High-Skilled Labor: H-1B Lottery Outcomes and Entrepreneurial Success," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(9), pages 6950-6970, September.
    3. William R. Kerr, 2020. "The Gift of Global Talent: Innovation Policy and the Economy," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(1), pages 1-37.
    4. Arellano-Bover, Jaime & San, Shmuel, 2023. "The Role of Firms and Job Mobility in the Assimilation of Immigrants: Former Soviet Union Jews in Israel 1990–2019," IZA Discussion Papers 16389, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Kahn, Shulamit & MacGarvie, Megan, 2020. "The impact of permanent residency delays for STEM PhDs: Who leaves and why," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(9).
    6. Patrick S. Turner, 2022. "High‐Skilled Immigration and the Labor Market: Evidence from the H‐1B Visa Program," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(1), pages 92-130, January.
    7. Amior, Michael & Stuhler, Jan, 2023. "Immigration, Monopsony and the Distribution of Firm Pay," IZA Discussion Papers 16692, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Sharma, Rishi R. & Sparber, Chad, 2024. "Buying lottery tickets for foreign workers: Lost quota rents induced by H-1B policy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    9. Alan Manning, 2021. "Monopsony in Labor Markets: A Review," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 74(1), pages 3-26, January.
    10. Breschi, Stefano & Lawson, Cornelia & Lissoni, Francesco & Morrison, Andrea & Salter, Ammon, 2020. "STEM migration, research, and innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(9).
    11. Michael Coon & Miao Chi, 2019. "Visa Wait Times and Future Earnings: Evidence from the National Survey of College Graduates," Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 43-61, June.

    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. Anna Maria Mayda & Francesc Ortega & Giovanni Peri & Kevin Shih & Chad Sparber, 2018. "New Data and Facts on H-1B Workers across Firms," NBER Chapters, in: The Roles of Immigrants and Foreign Students in US Science, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship, pages 99-121, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Chad Sparber, 2018. "Choosing Skilled Foreign†Born Workers: Evaluating Alternative Methods for Allocating H†1B Work Permits," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 3-34, January.
    3. John Bound & Breno Braga & Joseph M. Golden & Gaurav Khanna, 2015. "Recruitment of Foreigners in the Market for Computer Scientists in the United States," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(S1), pages 187-223.
    4. Sims, Katharine R.E. & Alix-Garcia, Jennifer M., 2017. "Parks versus PES: Evaluating direct and incentive-based land conservation in Mexico," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 8-28.
    5. Sharma, Rishi & Sparber, Chad, 2020. "Buying Lottery Tickets for Foreign Workers: Search Cost Externalities Induced by H-1B Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 13892, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Austin L. Wright, 2016. "Economic Shocks and Rebel," HiCN Working Papers 232, Households in Conflict Network.
    7. Wang, Huixia & Wang, Chenggang & Halliday, Timothy J., 2018. "Health and health inequality during the great recession: Evidence from the PSID," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 17-30.
    8. Durlauf, Steven N. & Navarro, Salvador & Rivers, David A., 2016. "Model uncertainty and the effect of shall-issue right-to-carry laws on crime," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 32-67.
    9. Sharpe, Jamie & Bollinger, Christopher R., 2020. "Who competes with whom? Using occupation characteristics to estimate the impact of immigration on native wages," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    10. Ilaria Natali & Mathias Dewatripont & Victor Ginsburgh & Michel Goldman & Patrick Legros, 2023. "Prescription opioids and economic hardship in France," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 24(9), pages 1473-1504, December.
    11. Guido Neidhöfer, 2019. "Intergenerational mobility and the rise and fall of inequality: Lessons from Latin America," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(4), pages 499-520, December.
    12. Janssens, C. & Van Den Broeck, G. & Maertens, M. & Lambrecht, I., 2018. "Mother s Non-Farm Entrepreneurship and Child Secondary Education in Rural Ghana," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277038, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    13. Terence C. Cheng & Pravin K. Trivedi, 2015. "Attrition Bias in Panel Data: A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing? A Case Study Based on the Mabel Survey," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(9), pages 1101-1117, September.
    14. Glei, Dana A. & Weinstein, Maxine, 2023. "Economic distress, obesity, and the rise in pain," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 339(C).
    15. Bénédicte Apouey & Gabriel Picone, 2014. "Social Interactions And Malaria Preventive Behaviors In Sub‐Saharan Africa," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(9), pages 994-1012, September.
    16. Kalbfuss, Jörg & Odermatt, Reto & Stutzer, Alois, 2024. "Medical marijuana laws and mental health in the United States," Health Economics, Policy and Law, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 307-322, July.
    17. Dimitrios Nikolaou & Laura M. Crispin, 2022. "Estimating the effects of sports and physical exercise on bullying," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(2), pages 283-303, April.
    18. Eliasson, Kent & Hansson, Pär & Lindvert, Markus, 2018. "Decomposing value chains within Swedish multinationals," Working Papers 2018:9, Örebro University, School of Business.
    19. Sebastian Barfort & Nikolaj Harmon & Frederik Hjorth & Asmus Leth Olsen, 2015. "Dishonesty and Selection into Public Service in Denmark: Who Runs the World’s Least Corrupt Public Sector?," Discussion Papers 15-12, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    20. Asmussen, Katherine E. & Mondal, Aupal & Bhat, Chandra R., 2022. "Adoption of partially automated vehicle technology features and impacts on vehicle miles of travel (VMT)," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 156-179.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    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:wly:jpamgt:v:38:y:2019:i:1:p:41-64. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/34787/home .

    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.