Except for the fact that, you know, a move by a scientist would likely be a career move, and not through some misguided knee-jerk reaction.

I work at a national lab. Half my coworkers, maybe more, are foreign. If we all got laid off, you could easily bet they'd go back to europe. If I got laid off, I'd either look for a different industry or look to Europe. I know several places I could drop into in Europe with a better success rate than trying to switch to a different lab in the US.

I'm not disagreeing with the fundamental point you're making: obviously a skilled professional is not just going to throw their hands up and bail for no reason.

But I think that highly skilled professionals of all stripes grapple with frustration and consider changing locales, industries, etc. - and not that many actually do.

I work in the tech industry in NY, and the number of times people I know (myself included) have said, "Man, the tech market here is (boring/too adtech based/too corporate/not worth the cost of living), we should move to (the bay area/austin/the middle of nowhere/the caribbean)" is huge. Very few of us have actually moved, because you become invested in a particular place, you like your lifestyle, you fear change, etc.

Again, not that scientists can't leave - but the article (and the HN headline) throws up the statistic of 18% considering leaving like it means something tangible.

Scientists have much more portable skills than many other professions, they're very used to working in multinational teams, and a large number of scientists in the US come from other countries to begin with.

I suspect it could be because so many scientists are foreign-born. If I traveled to a foreign country to do science research, and then got laid off, I'd certainly consider returning home.

Also, considering a course of action is far from following through with it. I've considered all sorts of actions that I would never commit.

At least 40% of the people I went to (grad) school with were non-natives. Many of them (about half) went back to their home country (to get academic jobs, typically). So, it could simply be that the base rate of people leaving is 20% now, just like it was before, and the article is reporting on a non-issue.

Then again, I left academic 6 years ago for the exact reasons listed- I wasn't able to spend my time doing science.

> the percentage of people who said they were leaving the country when Obama was (re)elected.

I don't get this. Most of these people were presumably conservatives, that were unhappy with Obama's election, but at the same time, most of their ideological/political views would seem incompatible with living anywhere other than the US.

[ I realize that this is probably horrible stereotyping, but I would be interested to talk to someone that held this view. ]

It is mostly a twitter joke that idiots said, along the lines with the (fairly small as an actual percentage of the american populace) who said, "Keep government out of my medicare!" (medicare is a government healthcare program).

I was being more tongue in cheek than anything.

I remember having the same reaction, especially after hearing many conservatives "considering" emigration to Canada, a nation much more socialist and tolerant than the U.S.

I agree. We should invest more in science and the metric's kind of insane. I bet more than 18% of people in ANY industry consider leaving the country for various reasons... Maybe the 18% referenced in article will leave the country with the fed-up 99% of the rest of the country...

How do you know they didn't leave?

> they're unhappy about something

emphasis added