How State and Local Efforts Are Leading the Way on Data Collection to Better Serve Immigrants and Refugees
In April 2024, the United States Department of Labor released the Bridging the Gap for New Americans Final Report, which analyzes barriers to economic inclusion as well as strategies for overcoming them. In its analysis of currently available resources, the report highlights the need for additional data on internationally trained immigrant and refugee job seekers. This data would support policymakers and practitioners’ efforts to bring more New Americans into the workforce.
To address this need, the federal government should learn from state and local government efforts to collect and share survey and program data on internationally trained immigrants and refugees. The federal government can then help identify successful state and local strategies that can be scaled or replicated at the national level.
With 1.5 million jobs across the country and not enough workers to fill them, the U.S. faces an urgent labor shortage that is expected to grow in coming years. These shortfalls will be especially impactful in key professions that require post-secondary training, such as teaching, engineering, and health care. With an estimated two million college-educated immigrants and refugees currently unemployed and underemployed (despite being authorized to work), New Americans who could join the U.S. workforce and help address these shortfalls are being kept on the sidelines because of systemic barriers.
To identify and address these barriers, however, policymakers and practitioners need better and more robust data on internationally trained immigrant and refugee professionals. Available data on this population are currently limited, with key datasets like the American Community Survey and Current Population Survey lacking important details, such as respondents’ occupational licenses, and the countries where they obtained their degrees or credentials. Below are three examples of how states are working to improve the quality of their data on internationally trained workers to better inform barrier-reduction work.
Colorado’s workforce database, Connecting CO (used by the state’s American Job Centers, Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE), other partners, and job seekers), has offered individual job seekers the option of self-identifying as “New American” since 2021. This data point now plays an important role in improving services for New Americans across the state. Crucially, it has informed key state initiatives such as the Global Talent Task Force and the Governor’s Office’s Wildly Important Goals. The CDLE is now working to officially establish a metric for workforce centers across the state. Using this metric, centers can better understand the backgrounds and needs of immigrants and refugees, better serve job seekers, and inform the Colorado ONA’s short- and long-term economic integration strategies.
In February 2021, the Pennsylvania Department of State (DOS) launched the New Pennsylvanians Licensure Survey to study internationally trained individuals’ experience pursuing occupational licensure in the state. Working with partners like the Welcoming Center and WES to promote the survey, the DOS received nearly 500 responses that provided insights into respondents’ education, work background, and licensure status, as well as the barriers they encountered. The most-cited barrier was the complex licensure requirements. Respondents also mentioned issues having of their prior work experience and education rejected by the licensing board, limited job opportunities, and language barriers.
The DOS has been working on several recommendations to address these barriers, including establishing an Office of New Americans (ONA) to support internationally trained immigrants and refugees, making the online licensure application easier to understand, and promoting further recognition of international education and experience.
In 2023, Utah’s New Americans Task Force conducted a survey of the state’s immigrant and refugee residents to build on recommendations from the Task Force’s Progress Report published earlier that year. More than 6,000 responses were collected. Relevant data include individuals’ educational backgrounds, credentials, or occupational licenses, and the barriers respondents encountered re-entering their fields.
Despite 70 percent of respondents holding a license to practice their profession in another country, only 35 percent said they were employed full-time and only 2 percent had applied for a license in Utah. Nearly half of all respondents identified language access as a major barrier to obtaining an occupational license. Since the survey was administered, Utah has implemented S.B. 43 and S.B. 35 to create inclusive pathways to licensure for qualified workers with international training or education by amending application requirements and expanding licensure endorsement options. These bills streamline the ability of qualified newcomers to work in regulated professions in the state.
These examples from Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Utah demonstrate ways in which states are attempting to collect better data on their internationally trained workforce so they can address barriers to employment and tackle labor shortages in key fields. The federal government can build on these efforts by partnering with states, especially those with large populations of New Americans, to better understand and utilize this data and scale promising strategies at the national level. Data can then be used by federal policymakers to prioritize efforts to increase economic inclusion, no matter what state New Americans live in.
You can read WES’ full summary of the Bridging the Gap Report, as well as our blog posts on the report’s recommendations for occupational licensing, career coaching programs, and contextualized English language learning. To learn more about WES’ state priorities, read our 2024 policy priorities blog.
