Domestic Policy, Global Shifts: The High-Tech Industry's Response to Restrictive Immigration Policies

The paper examines the unintended consequences on high-tech industry labor market of the 2017 "Buy American Hire American" executive order on the high-tech industry in the United States. It explores how the policy, aimed at promoting American-made products and reducing skilled foreign workers' entry, inadvertently shifted job opportunities to multinational corporations' overseas branches, potentially undermining the goal of increasing domestic employment and harming the sector's innovation capacity. Utilizing job posting data from LinkUp and a difference-in-difference approach, the study provides evidence that high-tech industries saw an increase in foreign job postings and a lack of significant increase in domestic job postings post-policy implementation. This suggests a strategic shift in job creation from the U.S. to international locations, influenced by the executive order's restrictive immigration stance.