HIGH-SKILLED IMMIGRANTS IN NEW YORK

Learn more about the need for high-skilled immigration reform at www.LetPJStay.com

NEW YORK FACES A LARGE STEM SHORTAGE

• There are more STEM job openings than unemployed STEM workers: From 2009 to 2011, 1.7 STEM job openings were posted online in New York for every 1 unemployed STEM worker in the state.
• As STEM fields grow, this problem will likely get worse: New York will need to fill 373,060 new STEM jobs by 2020.
• The healthcare industry in particular will be affected by a shortfall of STEM workers: Researchers estimate New York will be short 39,696 registered nurses by 2030.

IMMIGRANTS ARE FILLING STEM SHORTAGES IN NEW YORK

• Immigrants are a growing percentage of the STEM workforce: In 2010, 20.9 percent of STEM workers with an advanced degree in New York were foreign-born – a 41.6 percent increase in their share of the STEM workforce 10 years earlier.
• Immigrants play a critical role in the healthcare industry: In 2012, 37.5 percent of physicians in New York had graduated from a foreign medical school, a population that is overwhelmingly immigrant.

IMMIGRANTS INCREASINGLY POWER NEW YORK’S INNOVATION ECONOMY

• Immigrants are more likely to study STEM than the native-born: Immigrants are 22.2 percent of New York’s population, but in 2009, more than 53 percent of the students earning master’s or PhD degrees in STEM fields from New York’s research-intensive universities were foreign-born.
• Immigrants are inventing the products that will drive innovation over the coming decades: In 2011, 65 percent of patents awarded to Cornell University had at least one foreign-born inventor, and 46 percent had at least one foreign-born student, postdoctoral fellow, or researcher, groups with no clear path to stay in the United States after graduation. In FY 2010, the university earned $9 million in patent licensure revenue.

HIGH-SKILLED IMMIGRATION REFORM WOULD HELP NEW YORK’S COMPANIES COMPETE AND CREATE AMERICAN JOBS

• High-skilled visa holders create jobs for U.S.-born workers: The new H-1B visas awarded to New York between 2010 and 2013 will translate into 59,012 new jobs for U.S.-born workers in the state by 2020.
• Our visa system is costing jobs and revenue: Firm-level data from the 2007 and 2008 H-1B lotteries shows that the H-1B caps from those two years alone cost U.S.-born tech workers in the New York City metropolitan area as many as 28,055 additional jobs and as much as $470.5 million in aggregate annual earnings by 2010.