Highly skilled immigrants can't get work
Sunday, 15 July 2007
SAN FRANCISCO, July 14 (AP): In Peru, Ines Gonzalez-Lehman directed a 14-person marketing team at a high-tech firm. After marrying an American and immigrating legally to the U.S., she found herself making copies and answering phones at the bottom of the corporate ladder.
The immigration reform bill that recently failed in the Senate would have increased the number of visas for highly educated workers. But there remain tens of thousands of skilled immigrants like Gonzalez-Lehman who are here and authorised to work, but stuck in jobs where their experience is wasted.
Learning how their industry works in the United States, finding out about openings, talking up their assets in a way that appeals to an American employer - those steps, simple to someone educated in the United States, can block the path between a newcomer and work she is well-trained to perform.
"This is clearly an under-leveraged talent pool," said John Bradley, director of human resources at the investment bank JP Morgan Chase & Co. "We're in constant need of a supply of talent and this is a viable, well-trained source that we hadn't focused on in the past."
JP Morgan Chase is among the dozens of companies actively seeking trained immigrants already in the United States through Upwardly Global, a San Francisco-based nonprofit placement agency. The organization, which also has a New York office, is unusual among immigrant advocacy groups in that it focuses solely on well-educated legal immigrants, sharpening their ability to market themselves and connecting them with employers interested in their skills.
Executive director Jane Leu got the idea when she met an Iraqi engineer and a Bosnian surgeon during a visit to a chicken processing plant in New York. Leu, then a refugee resettlement worker, thought they could do better.
"Our system was well-oiled to resettle people into low-wage jobs," she said. "But these people were passionate about their careers."
Tales of educated immigrants stuck in lowly occupations have become part of American lore: The Polish doctor working as a doorman, the Lebanese accountant who drives a cab, the Pakistani engineer who makes ends meet serving tables. New arrivals are added to the roster every day.
Leu says English fluency and what she calls the perception problem - "when most people think of Bolivians, they don't think engineers" - are big hurdles.
But the biggest challenge is connecting the newcomer to the American job search system and workplace culture.
"An immigrant can know how to do a job, but not how to get that job," Leu said.
Over 1.2 million people became legal permanent residents of the United States last year. Many brought with them professional training, along with foreign languages and the ability to work cross-culturally - qualities prized by companies that are crossing borders themselves.
But unlike Canada and Australia, which select immigrants with desirable education and connect them with jobs that put their training to use, the U.S. makes no official attempt to integrate immigrants into the economy.
To some observers, that's just as well.
"The market economy generally does a good job of connecting people," said Stuart Anderson, executive director of the nonpartisan think tank National Foundation for American Policy.
That approach fits comfortably within the American appreciation for those who pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
"Here, you have lots of opportunities, but it's up to you," said Jeanne Batalova, a policy analyst with the nonpartisan, Washington DC-based Migration Policy Institute. "The assumption in the U.S. is that if they bring these skills, they must have resources, so they're the ones who need least support."
The immigration reform bill that recently failed in the Senate would have increased the number of visas for highly educated workers. But there remain tens of thousands of skilled immigrants like Gonzalez-Lehman who are here and authorised to work, but stuck in jobs where their experience is wasted.
Learning how their industry works in the United States, finding out about openings, talking up their assets in a way that appeals to an American employer - those steps, simple to someone educated in the United States, can block the path between a newcomer and work she is well-trained to perform.
"This is clearly an under-leveraged talent pool," said John Bradley, director of human resources at the investment bank JP Morgan Chase & Co. "We're in constant need of a supply of talent and this is a viable, well-trained source that we hadn't focused on in the past."
JP Morgan Chase is among the dozens of companies actively seeking trained immigrants already in the United States through Upwardly Global, a San Francisco-based nonprofit placement agency. The organization, which also has a New York office, is unusual among immigrant advocacy groups in that it focuses solely on well-educated legal immigrants, sharpening their ability to market themselves and connecting them with employers interested in their skills.
Executive director Jane Leu got the idea when she met an Iraqi engineer and a Bosnian surgeon during a visit to a chicken processing plant in New York. Leu, then a refugee resettlement worker, thought they could do better.
"Our system was well-oiled to resettle people into low-wage jobs," she said. "But these people were passionate about their careers."
Tales of educated immigrants stuck in lowly occupations have become part of American lore: The Polish doctor working as a doorman, the Lebanese accountant who drives a cab, the Pakistani engineer who makes ends meet serving tables. New arrivals are added to the roster every day.
Leu says English fluency and what she calls the perception problem - "when most people think of Bolivians, they don't think engineers" - are big hurdles.
But the biggest challenge is connecting the newcomer to the American job search system and workplace culture.
"An immigrant can know how to do a job, but not how to get that job," Leu said.
Over 1.2 million people became legal permanent residents of the United States last year. Many brought with them professional training, along with foreign languages and the ability to work cross-culturally - qualities prized by companies that are crossing borders themselves.
But unlike Canada and Australia, which select immigrants with desirable education and connect them with jobs that put their training to use, the U.S. makes no official attempt to integrate immigrants into the economy.
To some observers, that's just as well.
"The market economy generally does a good job of connecting people," said Stuart Anderson, executive director of the nonpartisan think tank National Foundation for American Policy.
That approach fits comfortably within the American appreciation for those who pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
"Here, you have lots of opportunities, but it's up to you," said Jeanne Batalova, a policy analyst with the nonpartisan, Washington DC-based Migration Policy Institute. "The assumption in the U.S. is that if they bring these skills, they must have resources, so they're the ones who need least support."