Amidst all this talk about immigration, I’m curious: Is there any nation on the planet that’s so desperate for a cheap workforce (or taxpayers to support pensions, or whatever) that they’re encouraging immigration? Or, at least, the process of immigration is less cumbersome than it could be?
Ireland. It was basically depopulated beginning with the Potato Famine and continuing with several subsequent waves of emigration. If you are qualified in a technical/computer field its quite easy to get a work visa – in fact they advertise this on the NYC subway.
As of about 3 years ago, some part of Australia were also fairly easy, although I think I heard this recently changed?
Canada continues to hike its immigration targets if that counts. It was 215,000 not so long ago (~2003) and I believe we’re shooting for 270,000 either this year or next.
I’m pretty sure the U.S. encourages immigration. I have several drinking buddies from other countries who came here.
We only discourage illegal immigration.
Oil-rich Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia encourage temporary immigrant guest workers. Working conditions are often poor, and AFAIK these workers are not encouraged to settle there. But it is essentially what you are asking about, a country that seeks a cheap workforce.
Thanks to the “oil boom” here in Alberta, we don’t have anybody to work at the lower-paying retail jobs. I know McDonalds recently imported a few dozen people, from Mexico I think, to work at stores here in Edmonton.
Quebec is aiming for 48 000 admissions in 2007. (PDF, page 2, French only, sorry.) We’ve got a very low birthrate at the moment.
Interestingly every time I try to enter Canada for work, I’m given the third degree. Note that my job’s not in Canada, but my company’s property is in Canada, and I’ve got to make sure those dang sneaky Canadians aren’t doing anything odd to our machinery so that it’ll work when it’s back in the United States. So, really, I’m not going to work, I’m going there to buy!
Up until April I actually did work there, but I had a work permit thus the only comments were “nice dog” (in reference to my dog). I had to jump through all kinds of hoops and the only reason is was finally approved was that I wasn’t stealing a Canadian’s job, but I was helping ensure the success of the Canadian economy due to my role there. :dubious:
You don’t think the relationship is reciprocal? Your customs guys do that to us too, ya know?
Japan is pretty eager to have people coming here from overseas. In particular, they love western teachers, translators and businesspeople. There’s also a push to bring in more nurses, especially from the Philippines, to meet the growing need as the general population turns gray. There was also a change in the immigration laws around 1990 that dropped most work restrictions for anyone who could show any Japanese ancestry, making hundreds of thousands in South America, mainly Brazil, eligible for (previously Japanese-only) factory work (this measure got a great deal of support from Toyota and Yamaha, and today Toyohashi and Hamamatsu, where they’re headquartered, have the biggest Brazilian populations). The government also wants college-age people to come here to study.
Encouraging people to stay, however, is an entirely different matter.
I believe Scotland is attempting to attract immigrants because it is otherwise contracting population-wise.
Yes, Australia is encouraging immigration, but it’s targeting it to particular groups, and also taking measures to discourage refugees. It wants young, highly-skilled, well-educated immigrants, and it also encourages immigrants to go to regional areas, rather than going to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
So most of the illegal immigrants in the US would not qualify to migrate to Australia, and a lot of the legal migrants wouldn’t either. In fact, I qualified to migrate to the US in two ways (first a temporary employment visa, then a green card through the Diversity Lottery), and I suspect that I wouldn’t qualify to migrate to Australia, except that I was born there 
Israel, if you’re Jewish.
Sure, but there was nothing in the OP that specified countries who encourage open, criteria-less immigration; if anything the opposite
We need more fresh meat to power the Matrix. Welcome!
We’re making it metric. It’s for your own good.
When your car is tooling down the interstate at a cracking 150.0 centilitres per hectare, you’ll thank us!
Are there actually jobs there for these people or is it a feel good move by the govt, knowing full well that most people would drift down to the economic centers shortly anyways.
Declan
LOL. Incidently we’re already almost 100% completely metric. The only thing we still use is pounds-force, psi, and gpm, and only for welding applications.
Having worked with the Canadians for well over a year now, though, other than their use of centigrade for temperature and litres for gasoline, most of them still use standard units for all every day communication. I’ve gotten “gallon milk” (US gallon, by the way) at 7-Eleven there, and for common speech everything else is still pounds, feet, gallons. Kilometers when talking road distance, miles when talking generalities. Ask for a pound of lunchmeat at the grocery store and they’ll give it to you. Oh, this is where I can dispute the so-called ease-of-use of the metric system: the first time I tried ordering meat at the deli counter, I asked for half a kilo. The clerk got confused as hell, despite the scale being in grams. When it eventually occurred to me to specify 500 grams, I got my meat, and then ordered in pounds every time after that. 