Editorial: Time to re-embrace the immigrant workforce
Despite an unease caused by problems like inflation, the U.S. and Central Massachusetts economic engines are surging right now. The national GDP grew 6% in 2021, the most since 1984. In Greater Worcester, unemployment dropped 0.6 percentage points in February to 4.4%, which is close to pre-COVID levels and actually slightly above state and national averages. This engine needs fuel to keep up this pace, and right now the main fuel needed is people.
Employers in every sector are hurting for workers. The retirements of the aging Baby Boomer generation accelerated in the pandemic, and the need to provide child care and elder care are preventing otherwise able-bodied Americans from fully participating in the workforce. With a decline in the birth rates and an increase in the death rate during the pandemic, the U.S. population growth rate was 0.1% in 2021, the lowest level since the U.S. Census started keeping track.
And the one reliable source of working-age adults has essentially been shut off for the past five years: immigration. The legal immigration system was dismantled under former President Donald Trump, and the current fighting between Democrats and Republicans in Washington, D.C. over how to rebuild it under President Joe Biden has resulted in a lag of new younger people being allowed to come work in the country. The net international migration in 2021 was the lowest level in decades, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, with the 168,000 work visas issued being 59% lower than the number issued in 2019.
David Jordan, president of the Worcester nonprofit Seven Hills Foundation, which has 4,600 employees spread over locations in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, says the workforce shortage has reached a crisis point in the health and human services industry. No doubt this crisis is permeating to many other industries as well. While Washington, D.C. struggles over the big picture of immigration reform, Jordan has proposed a relatively quick fix to Congressman Jim McGovern (D-Worcester) and U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh to help alleviate this crisis.
Under Jordan’s proposal, the existing H2-B visa program would be expanded to allow health and human services workers to enter the U.S. for up to 36 months, allowing them to work for a licensed nonprofit during that time, and after which they would return to their home countries or apply for another legal immigration status. By broadening the program, thousands of potential workers from Europe, Africa, or other areas of the globe could support care for the growing elderly and/or disabled populations.
Beyond Jordan’s tweak to address this one issue, it is time to look broadly at the comprehensive ways immigrants can support and shape the national and Central Massachusetts economy and business community. The flow of immigrants into the market should have never slowed; but regardless of what happened in the past, it is time to move forward with an embrace of those who make this business community stronger.
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