Summary:
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The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was the last significant immigration reform the United States passed.
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Regrettably, even in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, when worker shortages and labour market dysfunction have grown more apparent, the immigration debate has grown increasingly disassociated from the needs of the American economy.
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Worst still, unless policymakers can agree on significant reforms to support the U.S. workers, the ageing U.S. workforce and structural shifts towards a more service-oriented economy would probably worsen much of this dysfunction.
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Importantly, our strategy emphasises the jobs that are most in demand now and in the future and are most complementary to the current workforce, ensuring that efforts to address these labour market needs will benefit all employees.
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This framework can help immigration reform efforts in Congress and the executive branch—for example, when evaluating the scope of any increase in the number of H1B (speciality, high education) and H2 (temporary services) visa categories or when developing new policies, perhaps including some of those that we discuss at the end of the report—by providing a framework for comparison.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was the last significant immigration reform the United States passed. Despite intense debate at the national, state, and municipal levels, not much has been done since then to address what has grown to be a broken system.
Regrettably, even in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, when worker shortages and labour market dysfunction have grown more apparent, the immigration debate has grown increasingly disassociated from the needs of the American economy. Worst still, unless policymakers can agree on significant reforms to support the U.S. workers, the ageing U.S. workforce and structural shifts towards a more service-oriented economy would probably worsen much of this dysfunction.
By identifying the sectors of the economy that have the greatest need for workers, this research attempts to assist these crucial reforms. Importantly, our strategy emphasises the jobs that are most in demand now and in the future and are most complementary to the current workforce, ensuring that efforts to address these labour market needs will benefit all employees. The methodology at its core, which we refer to as the Occupational Opportunity Network, identifies important jobs with solid demand over the coming ten years, high historical immigrant intensity, and high complementarity with other occupations. In a nutshell, highly complementary professions are essential to the American workforce because they serve as inputs to various businesses and, within those industries, tend to increase other people’s employment.
This framework can help immigration reform efforts in Congress and the executive branch—for example, when evaluating the scope of any increase in the number of H1B (speciality, high education) and H2 (temporary services) visa categories or when developing new policies, perhaps including some of those that we discuss at the end of the report—by providing a framework for comparison.
We demonstrate that the H2B visa programme has to be enlarged to allow for an increase in the hiring of drivers, caretakers, hospitality employees, and construction workers. The H1B visa programme should also be broadened to allow for more hiring of CEOs, engineers, and other professionals, including those in the medical field.
It is crucial to stress that the jobs we identify as high economic value are not meant to be utilised as explicit policy targets. We presume that the market would allocate workers most effectively, and this assumption is supported by research indicating that immigrants are highly efficient labour market equilibrators. Reforms to the immigration system will therefore need to be broadly based. Instead, this research aims to describe the nature and scope of the workforce issues the United States is currently experiencing and highlight the effects that various changes will probably have on addressing the pervasive dysfunction of the labour market.
We start by outlining the current state of the American labour market, pointing out the significant distortions brought on by the pandemic and how they relate to the labour force made up of immigrants. The Occupational Opportunities Network is the next section of our comprehensive framework. We conclude by providing some practical policy applications.
