April 30
Although many Indian immigrants to the United States will require retraining or upskilling, a recent study finds that they are well-positioned to meet future labour demands, especially in occupations that demand higher levels of education and training. Immigrants and their American-born children make up 47.6 million workers, who are already essential to the US workforce and will continue to be in high demand in the years to come, according to a new study from the Migration Policy Institute.
Compared to 2000, when they made up 19% of the US workforce, immigrant-origin workers made up 29% in 2023. Since birthrates in the US have been declining, the entire increase in the population of working-age adults (25–54 years old) from 2000 to 2023 came from immigrants and their children born in the US. Without them, this demographic would have decreased by over 8 million individuals.
'How Immigrants and Their US-Born Children Fit into the Future US Labour Market' investigates, as stated in a press release, the educational requirements of future US employment and the extent to which current worker training and education fulfils those requirements.
The research compares trends in the immigrant-origin population with those among US-born persons with US-born parents, using US Census Bureau data, forecasts of the future growth of different occupational groupings, and projected educational requirements for US occupations among other sources. Implications for immigration and workforce policy are also discussed. New job forecasts reveal that educated people will be in high demand in the United States. Even though just 62% of US adults have a bachelor's degree or more in 2023, by 2031, 72% of US employment will need it.
Rapid technological advancement, an ageing population, a growing emphasis on green jobs, and other megatrends are reshaping the American workforce, adding to the dramatic transformation that has been observed in the last several decades as the US economy has moved from an industrial to a service and knowledge-based model.
A large portion of the adult immigrant population will be able to take part in the workforce of the future, which will demand more education and training. As of 2023, a significant majority of adults from Asian American and Pacific Islander backgrounds, as well as Black and White individuals, had completed some form of post-secondary education. This group comprises the second generation of immigrants to the United States.
While 62% of Black immigrants had some college under their belts, just under 60% of Latino individuals (first or second generation) had any degree at all. Among the immigrant groups most likely to meet the educational requirements of future occupations are those who have just arrived (those entering the country in 2020 or after): A bachelor's degree was held by 41% of the population, however just 36% of the third and subsequent generations (those born in the US to US-born parents) could say the same. People in this age group will have a leg up when it comes to competitive employment markets for highly skilled STEM fields, which are experiencing rapid job growth.
sectors in healthcare assistance, food and personal services, and certain blue collar sectors, which have traditionally employed huge numbers of individuals without post-secondary education and training, will demand higher levels of education in the next ten years.
While individuals of immigrant origin accounted for 29% of the workforce in 2023, they constituted 36% of the food and personal services sector and 34% of the health-care support and blue-collar occupations. There are 29.8 million adults of immigrant origin who have not completed some kind of postsecondary education or training. A large portion of this population consists of first-generation immigrants, who are particularly well-positioned to take advantage of postsecondary opportunities after earning a high school diploma.
Immigrants and native-born alike will need to reskill or upskill to gain the qualifications and competences that employers are looking for, or to improve their general abilities and digital literacy, if they want to keep up with the US economy's steady expansion. Policies and programmes to lower obstacles faced by all employees wishing to advance their skill sets could be part of such an endeavour.
Policymakers should make sure that more people from different backgrounds, including immigrant generations, genders, races, and ethnicities, are prepared for the demanding jobs of the future becausethe analysts write.that "in an economy marked as much by its growth as by wide, sustained mismatches between the skills workers have and those employers need,"
