29 Sep How Workforce Constraints Are Reshaping Global Mobility

For companies competing for specialized talent, immigration has traditionally been treated as a pathway into the United States. Increasingly, however, it is also influencing decisions about where talent ultimately works.

That distinction is becoming more important as employers navigate higher costs, processing uncertainty, visa limitations and greater compliance demands. Companies still want international talent, but when bringing or keeping an employee in the United States becomes difficult, some are responding by changing the location rather than abandoning the talent.

The result is a significant development for Global Mobility: immigration constraints are beginning to shape global workforce distribution.

Envoy Global’s 2026 U.S. Corporate Immigration Trends Report offers a revealing picture of that shift. Based on responses from more than 500 U.S. employers, the research shows companies adapting to immigration uncertainty through relocation, nearshoring, offshoring and longer-term retention strategies rather than simply reducing their reliance on international workers.

Talent is leaving—but employers are trying to keep it

One of the most striking findings is the increase in foreign national employees leaving the United States because of visa-related problems. Sixty-five percent of employers reported that employees had left the country during the previous year because of issues such as visa denials or processing delays, compared with 53% in 2025.

The important question, however, is what happens next.

An employee who cannot remain in the United States does not automatically cease to be valuable to the organization. Companies have invested in recruiting that individual, developing institutional knowledge and integrating the employee into teams and projects. Losing the person entirely can therefore be much more expensive than finding another location from which the employee can continue working.

That appears to be influencing employer behavior. Nearly 61% of respondents said their organization had relocated employees outside the United States because of visa-related barriers, up from about 49% the previous year.

Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom emerged as prominent destinations, while employers also expressed favorable views of immigration systems in countries including Australia, Germany, France, Ireland, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and the Netherlands.

What begins as an immigration obstacle can therefore become a global mobility decision.

Nearshoring and offshoring take on a new purpose

Nearshoring and offshoring are usually discussed in the context of labor costs, talent availability or operating efficiency. Immigration uncertainty adds another reason to consider them: retaining people a company already wants.

Envoy Global found that 68% of companies expect to use nearshoring or offshoring to address immigration barriers and domestic labor shortages in 2026.

That suggests the calculus around workforce location is becoming more complex. A company might initially recruit someone with the expectation that the person will work in the United States. If immigration pathways become impractical, the organization may instead consider whether the employee can be based in Toronto, Mexico City, London or another location where the company can legally employ and support that talent.

For multinational organizations, that can mean transferring workers through existing offices. Other employers may need alternative structures or partners that allow them to employ talent in markets where they do not yet have a substantial presence.

Either way, the strategic question changes. Instead of asking only, “Can we bring this person to the United States?” employers may increasingly ask, “Where can this person work so we can keep the capability inside the organization?”

That is a fundamentally different approach to mobility.

Immigration is becoming workforce planning

The change can also be seen inside organizations. Envoy Global reports that immigration oversight teams have expanded from an average of four people in 2024 to six in 2026. More than three-quarters of organizations now place immigration responsibilities within HR functions including Talent Acquisition, global mobilityand Total Rewards.

That reflects how immigration increasingly intersects with hiring timelines, payroll, benefits, relocation, compliance, budgeting and employee support.

Processing delays demonstrate why that integration matters. More than 83% of employers reported that USCIS or consular delays had moderately or significantly affected business operations. A delayed visa is therefore not simply an administrative inconvenience. It can postpone a project, prevent a needed employee from starting work or leave a strategically important position vacant.

Healthcare provides a particularly clear example. Employers recruiting internationally educated nurses may already have invested substantial time in recruitment, licensing and sponsorship before additional immigration delays prevent those workers from entering the United States. In such cases, immigration policy can affect not only HR but staffing capacity and service delivery.

Employers are also trying to create more certainty

Relocating employees abroad is only one response. Companies are also adjusting sponsorship strategies to create greater predictability for workers they want to retain.

Three-quarters of employers in the Envoy Global survey said they begin green card sponsorship within the first three months of employment. Roughly 90% cover all or most associated costs.

This reflects another important shift in perspective. Immigration sponsorship can be viewed as more than an employee benefit; it can function as a retention investment. When specialized talent is difficult and expensive to replace, the cost of creating a more stable immigration pathway may be weighed against the much larger cost of losing the employee.

Employers are simultaneously becoming more selective about H-1B sponsorship as costs and uncertainty increase. These two developments are not necessarily contradictory. Organizations can become more cautious about whom they sponsor while investing more heavily in workers they consider critical.

Global mobility becomes the contingency plan

For global mobility teams, perhaps the most significant implication is that workforce location can no longer be assumed to remain fixed once a person has been hired.

An immigration delay, denial or policy change can suddenly create the need for an alternative destination. That requires companies to understand not only U.S. immigration but where else employees can legally work, how quickly they can move, what relocation support they require and how the change affects compensation, tax, payroll, housing and family circumstances.

Mobility therefore becomes part of business continuity. The emerging model is not necessarily one in which companies stop bringing international talent to the U.S. Employer demand remains strong. Instead, organizations appear to be developing more alternatives when the preferred route becomes uncertain.

That may ultimately be the larger lesson from the data. Global talent has not become less important because immigration has become more difficult. In many organizations, the opposite appears to be happening.

The destination, however, is becoming more negotiable. And as employers become more willing to move work and workers across borders to preserve critical skills, global mobility may increasingly determine not simply how people move, but where the organization chooses to put its talent in the first place.