The Golden Age for Employers Is Ending

In many parts of the world, a backlash against mass immigration is shrinking the supply of foreign workers.

- Adrian Wooldridge

For as long as most of us can remember, business has been able to call on a ready supply of foreign workers. The giants of Silicon Valley, farmers and food processors, hotels and restaurants, house builders and megastores: All have dealt with labour shortages by recruiting immigrants.

One result has been an astonishing demographic transformation: 16 per cent of the British population, 20 per cent of the Swedish population, 19 per cent of the German population and 14.3 per cent of the US population were born abroad.

This golden age for employers is coming to an end. Popular discontent with mass immigration is rising; anti-immigrant parties are flourishing and mainstream parties are finally taking note.

In Britain, for example, 67 per cent of people say that immigration is too high; the anti-immigrant Reform Party is well ahead in the polls. US President Donald Trump is not the only leader who is clamping down on immigration. Canada's new Prime Minister Mark Carney has imposed a cap on temporary foreign workers and international students. Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer has spoken about the danger of the country turning into a "nation of strangers".

If dealing with rising tariffs is the biggest challenge for companies abroad, dealing with tighter immigration controls is the biggest challenge at home.

What should business do about this change in mood? One instinctive response will be to wait for the mood to change again. Surely the Trump whirlwind will blow itself out? And surely people will see sense when they have to face shortages of the foreign care workers who look after their aged parents? A second instinctive response is to help to change the mood by lobbying for more liberal immigration policies.

Both responses would be mistaken: We are witnessing a paradigm shift when it comes to mass immigration, rather than a temporary change.