The Situation:
“… in just 12 years, adults 65 and older will outnumber children under 18 for the first time in the history of the United States. And shortly after, by 2040, projections suggest the country will have 2.1 workers per Social Security beneficiary. According to these calculations, the system needs at least 2.8 workers per Social Security beneficiary to maintain its economic feasibility.” - Dany Bahar and Pedro Casas-Alatriste, Brookings Institute, July 14, 2022
“Healthcare’s lower-wage labor shortage [adds up to]…more than 3.2 million workers short within five years.” - Tanner Bateman, Sean Hobaugh, Eric Pridgen, and Arika Reddy Mercer/Marsh McLennan, 2021
“If every unemployed person in the country found a job, we would still have 4 million open jobs” - Stephanie Ferguson/US Chamber of Commerce, October 31, 2022
“About 460,000 families [are] needing to find alternative care arrangements [because they can’t find childcare] - Sarah House, Michael Pugliese, and Karl Vesely/Wells Fargo Economic Report March 1, 2022.
“2.1 Million Manufacturing Jobs Could Go Unfilled by 2030” - National Association of Manufacturers News Room, May 4, 2021
“Almost 45% of manufacturing executives surveyed have turned down business opportunities due to lack of workers.” - Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute, March 30, 2022
“…strong evidence that restrictions on H1B visas, which are intended for employment of high-skilled foreigners, lead to more offshoring, as firms are forced to head abroad for talent. That is an inconvenient finding for the many politicians who both support domestic manufacturing and are loth to increase immigration.” - The Economist November 3, 2022
“The annual H-1B visa quota of 85,000 for the next fiscal year has been met [out of 483,927 employer petitions]… We also need to add work visas for lower-skilled workers to fill jobs in occupations that experience chronic and growing labor shortages.” Society for Human Resource Management August 23, 2022
Current US Policy
“Visa categories have varying requirements, are subject to different numerical caps, and offer differing rights and responsibilities.” - Julia Gelatt/Migration Policy Institute, April 2019
“The annual employment-based [visa] limit is equal to 140,000 plus any unused visas in the family-sponsored preference categories from the previous year…” - Irene Gibson/Department of Homeland Security, 2021
“For certain occupations, the DOL [Department of Labor] has predetermined that there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available. These occupations [include]: Group I – physical therapists and professional nurses; and Group II – immigrants of exceptional ability in the sciences or arts, including college and university teachers, and immigrants of exceptional ability in the performing arts.” - Chapter 7, Schedule A Designation Petitions. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services December 2, 2020.
Bottom Line:
The US has a chronic and growing labor shortage of low- and middle-skilled workers, especially in the healthcare, childcare, manufacturing, retail, leisure and hospitality sectors. The Departments of Labor and Homeland Security have yet to acknowledge this situation, allowing a puny 140,000 employment-based visas a year, give or take, mostly for high-skilled foreigners. The only reason we’re in this ridiculous situation is politics. People think immigrants take jobs that would otherwise go to US workers and politicians don’t want to lose elections.
Of course, sometimes immigrants do take jobs, at least jobs for which there is a labor surplus. But right now, and for the foreseeable future, the U.S. needs more childcare workers, nursing assistants, home health aides, retail clerks, restaurant workers, and manufacturing workers - pronto! And there aren’t enough resident workers to fill these positions, so we need to increase the caps on foreign workers who have the necessary skills. Let’s start at a million a year, then tweak the numbers as labor market conditions change.
This would be politically feasible if our leaders and would-be leaders had the courage to take on popular misconceptions about immigration. And if they were sufficiently competent at communicating unpopular ideas without alienating voters - at least not so many voters that they couldn’t get elected.