Reports
April 2019
Competing Approaches to Selecting Economic Immigrants: Points-Based vs. Demand-Driven Systems
By Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Kate Hooper
Attracting skilled foreign workers has become a high priority for countries seeking to be economically competitive, but their methods for doing so vary. Since entering office, President Trump has called for the United States to adopt a more “merit-based†system, looking to Canada and Australia as potential models.
In demand-driven immigrant selection systems, including the one in place the United States, employers choose the workers they need to fill existing vacancies, and the government screens them to ensure they are eligible for admission, as well as to prevent fraud and enforce security protocols. By contrast, countries such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand use points-based systems in which governments take the lead, selecting among prospective immigrants based on labor and human-capital considerations, including professional experience, education, holding a job offer, and destination-country language proficiency.
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/selecting-economic-immigrants-points-based-demand-driven-systems
