Global Labor Mobility is Brakeless: Jump on it or Get Run Over. How Soft Skills put you in control.

By Luca Mastella

Does your country offer you little to no chance for success?

Pack up your life and build your own future. Soon a colossal change in global labor mobility will take place. We will all benefit.

If you aren’t one of the few overpaid and qualified expats, you are one of us: a migrant. Uncertainty is the main factor that accompanies us during our journey; if we fail, nobody will care about it, apart from me.

Born from the conclusive thesis of my multi-campus Master in Global Business held in Canada, France and South Korea, this book is a collection 1400+ migrants and professional recruiters’ testimonials to answer one great dilemma: How do I succeed abroad?

We cannot deeply understand the answer to this question without examining the epochal shift that will make migrants the most desired workers on the planet. By 2030 countries such as the USA, Germany, Russia, Brazil and South Korea will fight to have you working there. Sounds impossible right? It’s not.

“Global Labor Mobility is brakeless: jump on it or get run over. How soft skills put you in control” combines migrant testimonials and data in support of experts’ predictions. It will ease your uncertainties and put you in position to succeed everywhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Luca Mastella
• Release date: Jul 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781511456616

Book preview

PREFACE

I never imagined I could achieve what I have in the past two years. After high school I became a professional basketball player and I went to university just to please my parents. I chose a field with no obligatory lecture attendance: business. For the first two and a half years of university, I attended classes between the four-hour morning practice and the four-hour afternoon practice. Basketball was my life and I didn’t feel particularly good at anything off the court.

In November 2012 I broke my Achilles tendon during a basketball game. In January 2015, two years and two months later, I was a Marketing Manager in one of the top multinational video-game companies after six months working as Marketing Director in an IT startup in the Philippines. I was a different person, different projects for my life, different ambitions, and I quit my job.

How did I do it? Four months after the injury I obtained my Bachelor’s Degree in Economics & Business Management. Then, I left basketball and I left Italy. I spent the money I saved during my basketball career for a multi-campus Master in Global Business where I studied in three universities per three months each: uVic (Canada), Neoma Business School (France) and SKK University (South Korea).

To conclude the master’s degree program I had to write a thesis and work for six months anywhere in the world but my home country. So after nine months of classes I flew to the Philippines where an IT startup had offered me a six-month working experience. The company had just been launched, and I was immediately made the Marketing Director with full responsibilities and decisional power.

Meanwhile, I had to write my thesis. When my tutor asked me what my topic was, I immediately responded: a guide to escaping from countries in crisis. I thought about the difficulties that many Italians and people around the world are facing due the economic crisis. I wanted to investigate something that could concretely help other people in the same situation as me. It seemed the fair and right thing to do. But what are the factors that make allow people to leave their country, many for the first time in their lives, and succeed abroad? I ended up identifying two main factors: nontechnical skills and knowledge about the global labor mobility.

Without communication, language, social adaptation skills and information about the global labor phenomenon, you can never use your technical skills to their full potential. So I worked relentlessly for more than a year, reading books, making interviews, and submitting surveys. I received 1223 responses and 159 interviewees from migrants, plus 14 from professional recruiters.

From the engagement my surveys aroused in expat communities, I was given the research I needed to write this e-book. Since the beginning, the purpose of my thesis was to encourage my fellow human beings to be brave, jump on, and find a better life abroad. So I decided to copyright the e-book under creative commons. This way, my research and conclusions are free, shareable, and can reach the greatest audience possible.

Before leaving Italy I was unmotivated. I was ignorant about other cultures and the world surrounding me. Looking back, I feel I wasted the first 23 years of my life.

Fortunately, it’s never too late to change.

"[…] I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

- Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken.

INTRODUCTION

Do you feel unsatisfied with your life? Is it hard to find opportunities to express your talent in the country where you live? Don’t worry! Soon, a colossal change in the global labor mobility market will take place from which everyone will benefit.

We know that global labor mobility trends are closely linked to the worldwide economy. As new markets become more attractive, the demand of expatriates with specific correlated skills increases as well. Many studies have been conducted about the non-technical skills needed by expats in overseas assignments, such as The Oversea Americans¹.

Two types of workers can be considered expatriates. First, a worker that accepts to be reallocated from the local company to another office abroad for a predetermined amount of time and with specific tasks/goals to reach before being moved back (expatriate). Second, an autonomous worker moving from the country of origin to another seeking better living conditions and opportunities (migrant). If you are in the second group or you want to become a migrant, this is the book for you.

Expats have very precise technical skills that match the company requirements for the specific assignment. Cultural training, tests, insurance, accommodation, promotions, bonus’ and so on are privileges of expatriates. What’s different in respect to migrant workers? Everything. Migrants are going to compete in the global working market against qualified local and foreign workers. In addition, lack of local cultural knowledge, visa issues, race and nationality discrimination, language problems, adaptation difficulties and many more are disadvantages that endanger a migrant’s chance of success. They tend to be in a constant state of uncertainty. The uncertainty to find a job, integrate, settle, make friends, find a partner, are common struggles for migrants.

Like the enormous difference between expats and migrants, the skills required to achieve success in the global labor market are extremely different too. This is the reason I chose to examine the fundamental nontechnical skills migrants need in order to face the multiple challenges they will encounter on the road. These are the skills that provide a precious advantage in the global labor market.

This topic is gaining more importance every day due to the 2007 global financial crisis. The crisis exponentially heightened the international labor mobility, mainly from developed countries. The crisis’ effects, represented by a drop in GDP, a decrease in employment rate, pressures on public revenues, and deflation have affected mainly the developed countries’ economies and indirectly the developing countries with whom they do business².

These negative aspects completely changed the dynamics of the global labor mobility. The number of expats decreased (due the economic crisis affecting multinational companies) and the number of migrants increased (unemployed in the local markets).

If you think this signifies the epochal shift I mentioned before, think again. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

This book is divided into three main parts plus an appendix. First, we’ll take a look at the previous global labor mobility trends and the current phenomenon changes due to the economic crisis.

In the second part, thanks to the 1400 survey responses and interviewees from migrants and professional recruiters, we’ll analyze what non-technical skills put migrants in a position to succeed. By observing data from both migrants and recruiters, we can understand which soft skills migrants need as well as the inaccurate beliefs affecting our job search.

The third part is an attempt to forecast the evolution of the global labor mobility using the data collected. Most importantly, we will analyze the predictions of experts about what will happen in the near future until the year 2100.

Finally, the appendix contains tips about increasing migrants’ chances to be hired by international companies based on my direct experience and studies of the issue (resume, cover letter, application, networking and interview).

Combining the four parts I hope to achieve two goals. First, I hope to inspire readers who are unsatisfied with their lives to jump on the global labor mobility movement. Second, I want to give a concrete advantage to migrant workers already in the global labor market.

For each successful migrant, hundreds return home upon failure. It’s time for that to change.

It is impossible to predict the evolution of a phenomenon if we don’t understand its basic elements and its previous and current trends.

A few months ago I was talking to a girl from Mongolia that spent 3 years studying in Bucharest. When I told her she was a migrant she disagreed. She said she was just a student, not a migrant or expat like me.

Migration and the use of the term migrant in public debate is extremely loose and often suggests issues of immigration, race, ethnicity, and asylum. The word migrant is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as: A person who moves from one place to another in order to find work or better living conditions³.

United Nations’ statistics, specifically the Population Division, declared that the amount of people living abroad increased in direct relation to population growth. There were 154 million people international migrants in 1990, 175 million in 2000 and grew to 232 million in 20134. In only 13 years the number of migrants has risen 32%. It sounds like a very big number, but it is just the 3.2% of the world’s population.

When discussing migration developed countries are commonly referred to as "north