Since “Open for Business” has run its course on our welcome signs, perhaps it’s time to discuss who we’re open for as much as what we’re open for.

In the New Economy, any discussion has to begin with the global competition for talent. And by global, we do mean global. It’s a simple equation:

• The New Economy runs on innovation
• Innovation requires skilled talent
• As U.S. demographics (aging population) and careers tastes change (over half of the U.S. students in engineering and computer science graduate programs are from India or Asian countries), skilled talent is increasingly coming from outside U.S. borders
• Whichever parts of the world welcome and proactively recruit top talent most effectively win in the realm of economic growth

The United States, and especially non-diverse, lower-educated regions such as West Virginia, are at a severe crossroads. How can we replace our aging workforce? What new sources of young talent can we identify? How can we infuse our region with the highly educated, highly skilled workers required to drive our economy forward?

We must develop a creative approach to immigration, both from within the country and beyond U.S. borders.

Of course, this can be highly controversial. In many people’s minds, the term immigration conjures up images of illegal immigrants overwhelming public services and taking U.S. workers’ jobs. Wherever you stand on that issue, note we’re talking about the opposite kind of situation. As an example, imagine where our rural communities in West Virginia would be in terms of healthcare services without Indian or Filipino doctors.

In the post-9/11 climate, the U.S. has been working to become more restrictive with immigration. It has had the unfortunate effect of slowing down the stream of talented, well-educated immigrants coming to our shores. From Investor’s Business Daily:

According to a recent Pew Research Center report, while expressing strong support for global trade, 75% of Americans surveyed agreed with the statement “We should further restrict and control immigration.” Only 23% disagreed.

In addition, China and India are rapidly building up their educational infrastructure to the point where it is no longer a given than an ambitious citizen from those countries will need to come to a U.S. university for excellent training.

The U.S. has benefited from the efforts of these immigrants in high tech industries for the past twenty years because many of them stay and fill critical jobs in our best companies or start their own companies, creating more jobs in the U.S. Consider these findings from a joint Duke-UC Berkeley study of engineering and high-tech firms started in the U.S. from 1995-2005:

• In over 25% of these companies, at least one key founder was foreign-born.
• These immigrant-founded companies generated $52 billion in sales and employed over 450,000 people in 2005.
• Of all immigrant-founded engineering and high tech companies in the U.S., 26% of the founders were from India alone.
• Almost 80% of immigrant-founded companies were concentrated in two sectors: software and innovation/manufacturing-related services.
• The contributions of non-citizens to international patent applications deriving from the U.S. is dramatic, increasing from 7% in 1998 to 24% in 2006 (if those immigrants were not allowed in the U.S., these types of innovations would not have been developed or would have been developed outside the U.S.)

Other parts of the world are taking notice of the United States’ conflict over immigration policy, and they are leaping at the opportunity. Europe, for instance, while facing similar concerns over terrorism and security, is putting forth some bold, innovative approaches to welcoming immigrant talent to their countries.

States such as Iowa have been experimenting with some innovative and controversial policies and programs of their own dealing with not only “skilled” immigration but unskilled as well. Mark Grey, Director of the Center for Immigrant Leadership and Integration at the University of Northern Iowa, was a recent speaker at the Create WV Conference sharing some lessons learned.

We should be asking ourselves and our elected officials:

• As a nation and a state of former immigrants, and a region in dire need of an influx of talent, what should our strategy be for identifying and welcoming immigrants to West Virginia?
• How do we keep an open dialogue with current citizens and proactively address concerns that have kept many fearful of immigration?
• How do we compete on a global scale for the talent required to thrive in the 21st century?
• What is the alternative to not competing effectively for talent of all types in this global economy?