Seeking a fortune elsewhere
Boom in China, India lures emigrants home
By Jennifer Beauprez
Denver Post Business Writer
Friday, August 15, 2003 - After spending seven years in Colorado, Yusuf Hussain packed up the contents of his three-bedroom Littleton home last week in search of a better life.
He says he will find it in Pakistan.
The 39-year-old executive came here from Pakistan just as the U.S. tech economy was taking off in 1996. Today, he is being lured back by what he can't find here: jobs, wealth and economic activity.
Many foreign nationals no longer view America as the land of opportunity. Economists, business people and other experts say growing numbers of immigrants are moving back to their home countries of Pakistan, India, China, Singapore and Vietnam - countries with job and economic growth sometimes double or triple that of the United States.
The U.S. government hasn't kept numbers on emigration for several decades. But economists and immigrants say the anecdotal evidence of the trend is real.
"I get calls from friends left and right saying they are packing up and going back to China," said Hai Yan Zhang, a Boulder-based Chinese business consultant who travels to China five times a year.
"I go to China and see people's eyes sparkling," Zhang said. "It's full of life and vitality there, in contrast to the U.S., where we're reaching a plateau, perhaps going down."
Economists say the exodus could hurt the U.S. economy because America is losing some of the world's smartest and most entrepreneurial people.
And it most likely will feed a controversial trend by U.S. companies to create jobs or move existing jobs offshore. The companies, facing competitive pressures, want cheaper and faster software development, manufacturing or customer service.
"Those people will have the talent to do the work in their home country, and they have the relationships with the companies they used to deal with," said Rich Wobbekind, an economist with the University of Colorado. "It's going to be easier for them to set up facilities in other countries."
Indeed, that's what lured Hussain back to Pakistan.
Hussain, chief executive of Denver software firm Cressoft Inc., plans to open a facility in Pakistan to provide software development for U.S. companies.
"Offshore in my mind is the most high-growth prospect for the foreseeable future," Hussain said.
He also sees climbing real estate values and an improving stock market in Pakistan, although economists still view it as highly volatile nation.
But almost all countries in Southeast Asia have higher economic growth rates than the United States. Much of that activity is fueled by U.S. companies outsourcing work there.
China is experiencing the fastest economic growth of any country, expanding at 8 percent a year, according to CIA statistics. By comparison, the U.S. economy grew just 2.45 percent last year.
China has become a key manufacturing center for companies across the globe, making everything from washing machines and clocks to chemical fertilizers and sugar.
India's economy ranks No. 2, growing 4.3 percent last year. With its highly educated, English-speaking workforce, India has become a prime spot for affordable customer-support call centers, software development houses and, more recently, technical support centers.
"I know a lot of Indians who are going back to India," said Zafar Khan, a Denver lawyer and accountant who speaks six languages and has lived in five countries.
Khan said he is considering moving back to his native Pakistan to join Hussain's software venture.
"I'm toying with it," he said. "I'm an international guy. I can move anywhere there is opportunity."
Multiple forces may pull immigrants back home, said Bahman Paul Ebrahimi, a global business professor at Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver.
Some people arrived here a few years ago to meet demand from companies that desperately needed talented computer scientists to keep up with the booming economy. Today, their work visas have expired, and they're forced to go home because they can't find an employer to sponsor them, he said.
Ebrahimi said he also knows of foreign students who came for school but now are leaving because they couldn't find work after graduating.
Ebrahimi, who moved here from Iran decades ago, said he also perceives an anti-immigrant feeling here and a deep resentment from jobless Americans.
"No matter how long you live here, people will consider you a foreigner," Ebrahimi said. "There's a social stigma and backlash in this country. Sometimes there's subtle, even overt, hostility."
Others, such as Hussain, crave being close to family and cultural roots.
"It's very work-oriented here," Hussain said. In Pakistan, he said, there's a slower pace of life in which people focus more on family and relaxation.
"You can get into a deep discussion with anyone about religion and philosophy," he said. "It's the time you're able to spend with your family, the warmth of people. They savor different aspects of life."
Yet there's a tradeoff, said Zhang, the Chinese consultant. She warns that many people who have spent enough time in America suffer from what she calls "re-entry shock" when they return home.
In China, houses typically are cramped. Corporations are bureaucratic, offering little room for advancement or personal initiative, Zhang said.
And in India, simple things such as getting phone service can take a week, or standing in line for banking can take hours.
"Customer service is a phrase that didn't exist in India for a long time," said Hemal Jhaveri, a native of India and chief executive of Denver software firm SofTec Solutions Inc. "You take a lot of things for granted."
As more immigrants leave, fewer come to the United States on temporary work visas these days.
Outside of retail pharmacies and health care employers, job-slashing corporations no longer salivate over foreign nationals as they did a few years.
Plus, the government has tightened restrictions on immigration because of homeland-security concerns, said Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship & Immigration.
Requests to receive H-1B temporary work visas fell 41 percent from October 2001 to June 2002, according to Economy.com. And the number of those visas actually doled out dropped 53 percent to 60,500 over the same period.
"I think it's a loss for the long run," said Wobbekind, the economist. "Over the centuries, that's what made our country great, having a melting pot of different cultures and talents. We're accidentally exporting some smart people who could easily compete with us."
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