Smaller countries, such as Sweden, Holland, and Ireland, in particular, are seeking to produce more graduates with international experience suitable for work abroad, in order to cope with their growing international businesses activities. Secondly, on the demand side, call for highly skilled personnel with international experience is on the rise. Immigration incentive policies are also a factor in many countries where such policies exist. The overall volume of European migration to the US has been more or less steady over the last few years. In 1994 the numbers were higher than in 1995 and 1996 due to changes in US immigration law that allowed many students to stay on.
Emigration varies across Europe.
Figure 1 above provides a good picture of the distribution of EU migrants in the US in terms of citizenship. The Number of Professionals 7,638 EU professionals were granted permanent US visas in 1996. These often originate from temporarily intra-corporate transfers that turn later into long term and permanent ones. The data show that in 1995 there were around 17,000 Europeans who had remained in the US after having completed their Ph.D. Of these around 11,000 had become naturalized citizens, and about 3,900 of them had become permanent residents. These include Ph.D. holders in all fields.