As the Trump economy touts quarterly job growth, the country continues to lose millennials to opportunities abroad — a huge problem considering that millennials form a third of the U.S. workforce.
According to the State Department, about 9 million Americans currently live abroad, up from 4 million in 1999. These 5 million didn’t all pack their bags to flee America after the November election — it happened gradually over time. Faced with recessions and limited job growth, they ditched America for a better quality of life. Unsurprisingly, millennials have been leading this migration.
MoveHub, a company that assists people with international moves, saw a significant increase in inquiries between 2015 and 2016, and professional migrants (typically between the ages of 25 and 44) comprised about a third of these inquiries. MoveHub also noted that young Americans in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco inquiring about relocating abroad grew during this period. All three of these are sanctuary cities that have out-priced millennial workers.
Millennials have arguably been impacted the most by the Great Recession and the lack of job growth that followed, and are the most inclined to pack their bags and go. A 2016 Gallup poll found that 59 percent of millennials have never been married and 60 percent have no children. With no “baggage” so to speak, they are free to pursue opportunities in any time zone. Fueled by a sense of adventure, these experience-driven millennials have abandoned the American dream — or found it elsewhere.
American pilots for Chinese airlines make $300,000 a year, and college grads do pretty well as engineers, executives and teachers abroad. Even blue collar workers making 150 pesos an hour at a Mexican factory job live better than minimum wage workers stateside. Lured by the lower cost of living, better and more flexible jobs and the thrill of foreign travel, millennials are finding attractive opportunities everywhere from East Asia to New Zealand.
For the entrepreneurial millennial, other countries have been better for business. “There are a lot of good reasons to consider running a business as an expat,” argues Ryan Paugh, co-founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council. “Overhead can be significantly lower. Finding the right talent can be far less competitive. Not to mention, many foreign countries are welcoming foreign startups and entrepreneurs as an economic development opportunity — frankly, something the US could learn from.” While other countries are unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit of our millennials, our country is losing out.
President Trump’s mantra of “America First” has the potential to restore opportunities for young people to thrive in their homeland — if it is followed up with swift action on economic policy. Curbing illegal immigration and standing up to sanctuary cities is a very important first step, but incentivizing entrepreneurialism, job growth and workforce housing must continue to remain an immediate priority if we want to keep productive millennials here.
The longer millennials find themselves in unsatisfying jobs without a spouse or family of their own, the more attractive a life abroad becomes. After all, what does an unmarried, underemployed (or unemployed) millennial have to lose?
