A new study shows a 60 percent drop in requests from US companies for foreign workers

According to new research just published by the data science team at Hired, a jobs marketplace for tech workers, Donald Trump’s efforts to push an America-first philosophy is having a measurable impact on how comfortable tech companies feel in seeking out foreign-born workers.

According to Hired — which examined patterns in the international hiring behavior it sees on its platform — there was a stunning 60 percent decrease in requests from U.S.-based companies to foreign workers from between the second and final quarters of last year, which likely owed to uncertainty around immigration policies following the U.S. presidential election results.

Foreign candidates were also more reluctant to engage with U.S. companies, says Hired, though a 4 percent decrease in the rate at which they accepted interview requests late last year has rebounded more than twofold this year, it says.

The proprietary data was based on 175,000 interview requests, says the company.

Hired separately surveyed both applicants and hiring companies globally about the administration’s rhetoric; somewhat unsurprisingly, 60 percent of the 362 respondents said they believe the administration will have a negative impact on the tech industry. More concerning, almost a quarter of respondents said they are less likely to start a company in the U.S. as a result.

Forty percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by either immigrants or the children of immigrants.

Of the 40 percent of Hired’s survey respondents who said they’ve considered relocating to another country since the election, nearly one-third cite Canada as their top choice (32 percent), followed by Germany (12 percent), Asia (10 percent) and Australia (10 percent).

You can find Hired’s new data report here if you’re curious to read more.