Economic freedom: working where you please

Recently news is reporting on the refusal of the United States government to give work visas to foreigners. I believe people should get more freedom on where they would like to work. This is because of shortages in human resources in many countries and to promote economic efficiency.

In the United States only, there are more than 3 million job vacancies that are unlikely to be filled in anytime soon. Other countries are facing the same problem, a problem that could be overcome by bringing in foreign talent. If there are job vacancies that can’t be filled, economic growth will have a limitation.

Some jobs could better be filled by foreigners. For example in The Netherlands, who would like to do cleaning work nowadays? Or paint your house? And if there are people that do it, they charge way too much for it. This forces people to “do-it-themselves” and being limited in the time they spent on other things (including work). Bring in a foreigner and he or she will do a good job for a decent price, saving the locals money and/or time. The foreigner that did the work would also be better off then when doing the same work in his or her home country. The economy will benefit because the local people will have more time for highly-skilled work and the foreigner is contributing by being part of the work force and spending part or all his money in The Netherlands.

Now it won’t be a good idea to be giving work visas to everyone that enters a country. But step by step a country could let more people in to fill vacancies, which will lead to an overall higher level of economic prosperity.