HIGH-SKILLED IMMIGRANTS IN NORTH CAROLINA

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

NORTH CAROLINA 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 North Carolina for every 1 unemployed STEM worker in the state.
• As STEM fields grow, this problem will likely get worse: North Carolina will need to fill 201,800 new STEM jobs by 2020.
• The healthcare industry in particular will be affected by a shortfall of STEM workers: Researchers estimate North Carolina will be short 20,851 registered nurses by 2030, and the North Carolina Institute of Medicine projects that the ratio of physicians-to-population could drop 21 percent by 2030.

IMMIGRANTS ARE FILLING STEM SHORTAGES IN NORTH CAROLINA

• Immigrants are more likely to study STEM than the native-born: Immigrants are 7.3 percent of North Carolina’s population, but in 2009, 32.2 percent of the students earning master’s or PhD degrees in STEM fields from North Carolina’s research-intensive universities were foreign-born.
• Immigrants are a growing percentage of the STEM workforce: In 2010, 20.1 percent of STEM workers with an advanced degree in North Carolina were foreign-born – more than double their share of the STEM workforce 10 years earlier.
• Immigrants play a critical role in the healthcare industry: In 2012, 14.4 percent of physicians in North Carolina had graduated from a foreign medical school, a population that is overwhelmingly immigrant.

HIGH-SKILLED IMMIGRATION REFORM WOULD HELP NORTH CAROLINA’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 North Carolina between 2010 and 2013 will translate into 22,319 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 Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area as many as 2,557 additional jobs and as much as $47.1 million in aggregate annual earnings by 2010.