The Golden Age for Employers Is Ending: Adrian Wooldridge

For as long as most of us can remember, business has been able to call on a ready supply of foreign workers. The giants of Silicon Valley, farmers and food processors, hotels and restaurants, housebuilders and megastores: All have dealt with labor shortages by recruiting immigrants. One result has been an astonishing demographic transformation: 16% of the British population, 20% of the Swedish population, 19% of the German population and 14.3% of the US population were born abroad.

This golden age for employers is coming to an end. Popular discontent with mass immigration is rising, anti-immigrant parties are flourishing and ...