Commentary: We Can Do More to Get Refugees into Jobs that Match Their Skills
Times Union
When people’s education, skills and experience are not put to work, the unused human capital is an economic loss to us all. Physicians, engineers, computer programmers and teachers enter our country legally every year through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, are resettled in upstate New York and become permanent residents after one year. Unfortunately, many refugees with university educations and professional experience remain unemployed or underemployed, working in jobs that do not require a college degree…
…According to a University at Albany Center for Health Workforce Studies report, New York has workforce shortages in all health care settings. These shortages affect all of us when we must wait many months to see a specialist or get special tests or scans, or must wait many hours for care in short-staffed emergency rooms. Yet a 2020 Migration Policy Institute report estimated that 22,000 immigrants and refugees in New York with a least a four-year college degree in medical fields were unemployed or underemployed.