[bmcleod]

This particular piece isn't so much dealing with skilled migrants as it is with migrants who are willing and able to work and can do something as they're seasonal workers who normally come to work in orchards etc.

New Zealand has a significant advantage in that case where the people coming in on this program are islanders with a strong cultural imperative to work hard and send money home to their families.

Your points are good ones, they just don't really mirror what's actually happening in this case.

[barrydahlberg]

If anything I would expect a highly skilled worker (doctor, programmer etc) to be taking an income loss coming here.

[pygy_]

The same goes for Europe, at least for immigrant doctors, who are considered under-skilled and must go back to University at first to get an equivalent diploma...

Also, the medical profession has lost a lot of its prestige here (In Belgium, at least).

From what I heard from colleagues coming from less developed nations, they were more respected in their country of origin than local, established doctors are here.

Due to latent (or sometimes overt) racism, foreign doctor are even less considered, and have thus a harder time earning money.

Even if their net income increases, on a relative scale they lose a lot and happiness is a function of how rich you are relative to your peers.