E.g., 04/24/2024
E.g., 04/24/2024
Workforce & Vocational Training

Workforce & Vocational Training

_Manufacturing4

Immigrant workers are expected to play a key role in helping U.S. and other advanced economies weather the historic reshaping of their workforces as the baby boom retires. With a significant share of foreign-born workers at the bottom of the skill spectrum, the limited response of the workforce system to the needs of low-skilled immigrant workers is a pressing issue, raising the need for more workforce, vocational, and language training. Access to such programs is also key for mid- and high-skilled migrants who face difficulties in obtaining recognition for their foreign qualifications and work experience.

Recent Activity

Pages

coverthumb_future work us
Reports
October 2020
By  Julia Gelatt, Jeanne Batalova and Randy Capps
Integrating Refugees and Asylum Seekers into the German Economy and Society: Empirical Evidence and Policy Objectives
Reports
December 2019
By  Herbert Brücker, Philipp Jaschke and Yuliya Kosyakova
Coverthumb Orrenius Zavodny Gullo LaborMarket
Policy Briefs
August 2019
By  Pia M. Orrenius, Madeline Zavodny and Stephanie Gullo
Coverthumb MPI Holzer Future US Labor Market
Policy Briefs
August 2019
By  Harry J. Holzer
coverthumb Social Innovation Refugee Inclusion 2019
Reports
June 2019
By  Liam Patuzzi, Meghan Benton and Alexandra Embiricos

Pages

Public frustration with decades of poor governance and pervasive corruption in Ukraine culminated in the EuroMaidan revolution in November 2013. Since then, violent conflict and Russia's annexation of Crimea have displaced an estimated 2 million people, both internally and internationally. This feature article explores migration ambitions among Ukrainians in the lead-up and aftermath of EuroMaidan, and the impact of war and economic crisis on traditional migration patterns.

This article examines the underlying reasons for the interrupted school enrollment of Latino immigrant young adults in the United States who are colloquially referred to as dropouts and perhaps more precisely should be defined as pushouts, shutouts, or holdouts. A study reveals wide-ranging reasons for the interruption in their schooling, both before migration and after, and provides relevant data for educational policy and programming.

There is an ongoing debate over the children born to Europe's guest workers of the 1960s and 1970s: Can they move up the educational ladder, or will they form a new underclass in Europe's largest cities? Maurice Crul of the University of Amsterdam compares outcomes for second-generation Turkish children across five countries.

Pages

Video, Expert Q&A
December 6, 2016

Nearly 2 million college-educated immigrants in the United States are stuck in low-skilled jobs or are unemployed—a phenomenon known as brain waste. In this brief video, MPI researchers discuss their key findings on immigrant skill underutilization and the resulting billions of dollars in unrealized wages and forgone federal, state, and local tax receipts.

Video, Audio
October 20, 2016

A discussion featuring data on immigration trends and the agricultural workforce, and some of the adjustments that farm employers are making, including increased mechanization, improved wages and benefits, and the increased use of the H-2A program. University of California-Davis’s Phil Martin, along with researchers from the the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Labor, present their findings on the foreign agricultural workforce in the United States, which is followed by comments from the President of Farmworker Justice on some of the policy implications.

Video, Audio
December 17, 2015

A webinar discussing fact sheets that compare the characteristics of immigrant and native-born residents that are relevant to understanding needs for adult education and workforce training services in the United States and the ten states with the largest immigrant populations.

Audio
December 16, 2015

This briefing in Bangkok launches the MPI-IOM Issue in Brief, Shortage amid Surplus: Emigration and Human Capital Development in the Philippines, which reviews the impacts of the Philippines' successful labor export policy on skills development and human capital growth within the country. While Filipino migrant workers contribute significantly to the national economy with the remittances they send home (over US $27 billion in 2014), this reliance on exporting labor raises an important question: Has the nation’s focus on preparing workers to leave compromised human capital development at home?

Video, Audio
September 28, 2015

This webinar examines the implementation at state and local levels of the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and how it may limit immigrant integration, along with a discussion on strategies that may help ensure more equitable access to services.  

Pages

Recent Activity

Articles

High-skilled immigration represents a potential major benefit to Czechia, which has undergone rapid economic growth since the transition from communism. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of new Ukrainians, many of whom are well educated, marks a moment for the country to re-evaluate its integration policies, as this article details.

Policy Briefs
March 2023

The Task Force on New Americans launched by the Biden administration represents an important occasion to deepen understanding of immigrant integration issues and to identify ways to address them. MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, which has long argued for the need to create such an office within the White House, has developed recommendations for the task force in key areas, drawing from its extensive record of research, policy analysis, and technical assistance.

Commentaries
November 2022

Shortages of workers continue to plague early childhood education and care (ECEC) systems across the United States. With the field already struggling to effectively serve young children in families that speak languages other than English, apprenticeship programs offer a promising solution to bring more—and more multilingual—workers into early childhood careers.

Policy Briefs
October 2022

As the United States seeks to adapt to trends such as technological change and aging that are reshaping the labor market, increasing productivity and the number of high-skilled workers will be critical. This issue brief explores the characteristics of the 115 million adults without postsecondary credentials, 21 percent of them immigrant, as well as the prospects for credential acquisition for foreign-born subgroups.

Policy Briefs
April 2022

Immigrants play important roles across the U.S. health-care workforce, but not all of those with in-demand health and medical degrees are able to put their skills to work. Addressing this skill underutilization, or “brain waste,” has only become more important during the pandemic. This brief examines the extent of skill underutilization among immigrants with health degrees in Illinois, a state with a long history of immigration, and efforts to better leverage these skills.

Reports
February 2022

U.S. adult education systems have undergone significant changes, including to programs supporting immigrant integration. The creation of the Integrated English Literacy and Civics Education (IELCE) program has sparked the development of innovative initiatives, but also raised concerns about their accessibility and ability to meet immigrant adults’ diverse learning goals and needs.

Policy Briefs
December 2021

Europe has announced it will launch a set of Talent Partnerships, combining new mobility schemes for workers or students with related investments in capacity-building in partner countries. As the details are being hammered out, this MPI Europe policy brief explores how and under what conditions these partnerships could help meet European labor market needs and provide tangible benefits for partner countries and migrants themselves.

Video, Audio, Webinars
December 1, 2021

In this webinar, speakers examine the critical role of child care provided by family, friends, and neighbors (FFN) for immigrant families and program and policy approaches to more equitably serve and support FFN caregivers.

Pages