A changing labor force demands new solutions — and immigration is at the center of the conversation. On this episode of Tomorrowist, host Jerry Won speaks with Justin Ladner, SHRM Senior Labor Economist, to explore what shifting immigration policies and demographics mean for the future of work. From evolving visa programs to surprising workforce trends, this conversation breaks down what business leaders should watch for in immigration and labor policy to stay ahead of disruption. In this episode, you'll learn: - How immigration patterns have changed since the pandemic — and why they matter now more than ever. - Why foreign-born workers are increasingly critical to filling labor and skill shortages as the U.S. population ages. - Key questions executives need to ask about immigration policy and its impact on workforce planning, regional expansion, and even DEI strategy.
A changing labor force demands new solutions — and immigration is at the center of the conversation.
On this episode of Tomorrowist, host Jerry Won speaks with Justin Ladner, SHRM Senior Labor Economist, to explore whatshifting immigration policies and demographics mean for the future of work. From evolving visa programs to surprising workforce trends, this conversation breaks down what business leaders should watch for in immigration and labor policy to stay ahead of disruption.
In this episode, you'll learn:
Resources from this week’s episode – SHRM Research: The Role of Foreign-Born People in the US Labor Force
https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/research/the-role-of-foreign-born-people-in-the-us-labor-force
Subscribe to Tomorrowist to get the latest episodes, expert insights, and additional resources delivered straight to your inbox: https://shrm.co/voegyz
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Jerry: I'm Jerry Won. Welcome to this week's episode of Tomorrow. This week we'll explore how immigration is reshaping the labor market. As of October, 2024, individuals born outside the US made up 19.2% of our country's labor force. That's nearly one in five workers, an all time high here. To unpack the data and to help you prepare for what's ahead is Justin Ladner, SHRM's C, senior Labor economist.
Justin, welcome to tomorrow.
Justin: Jerry, thank you so much. It's glad to join you all [00:01:00] today.
Jerry: I'm so excited to be talking about this. It's something that impacts our daily lives, uh, where we work, where our community works, and you know, it, it's, uh, all over the news and almost seemingly, um, an over fluid topic. And you do amazing research and I love to talk to you about the data because as they say, data doesn't lie. Uh,
Justin: Hmm.
Jerry: a story, uh, both from a historical and a present perspective, but also gives us an opportunity to, um, do our best to try to forecast what the future lies. And so, um, how would you describe the role of immigration and its, uh, role in playing, shaping the US labor market over the last five years?
So, looking back, you know, since the pandemic to where we are
Justin: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a really, it's a very interesting story actually. I mean, immigration has always shaped the US labor force, uh, in, in some way going, going back throughout history, um, for, for 250 years and, and even beyond then. Um, it's, it's been a huge part of, of, of kind of telling the story of how the US labor force has [00:02:00] evolved over time.
Um, but the last five years have been a very, um, a very turbulent period, a very interesting period, um, because they kind of kicked off, if we're thinking about this five year period as starting with the pandemic, um, we begin with, you know, obviously a sort of a sort of sudden drop in immigration during that initial shutdown phase.
Um, where, you know, people were really not coming in and out of, uh, uh, of countries in general. Um, and, and the flow of people in or outta the United States had really had really slowed, uh, considerably. Um, and that was a, you know, global phenomenon. So, coming out of that, there has been, um, a, between, let's say late 20 20, 20 21 and 2020 in the, through the end of 2024, I.
Um, a pretty significant surge, uh, in, in immigration. Uh, now part of that probably reflects the fact that there are people who had been thinking about, or who had anticipated migrating prior to the pandemic who had those plans delayed. So part of that is just a, a, a kind of effect of people catching up with what their plans had been.
Part of it is also, [00:03:00] um, reflecting kind of geopolitical realities that have cropped up, particularly, uh, if we think about, uh, kind of the sources of, of, of, of immigration in recent years. Um, it's been, um, I mean, Latin America has always played a big role in terms of the sources of migration to the United States, or at least in the last, in the last.
You know, several, the last 50, 60 years, let's say. Um, but, um, sort of geopolitical instability and uncertainty in Latin America has played a role in, in, in, uh, producing a lot of migrants from that region. Um, in recent years.
Jerry: What are some of the misunderstandings or, you know, what, what is the most misunderstood thing about the immigration po or you know, the impacts from a labor perspective?
Justin: Well, I think one of the biggest misunderstandings, or I, I should say maybe just, you know, one thing about the, the pool of foreign born people in the United States is that it is a lot more complex than I think people understand. So first off, it's, it's, um, diversity in terms of where migrants come from.
Um, it is, it is, it is quite broad. Um, there are, there are [00:04:00] migrants that come from basically every corner of the globe. Um, it's not just coming from a handful of countries in Central and South America. I. Um, it's, it's really from lots of different places. For example, there are huge populations from, uh, a lot of Asian countries, China, uh, India, Japan, uh, the Philippines, Korea.
Those are all big, um, uh, sources of, uh, uh, foreign born, uh, labor in the United States. Obviously there are other countries too, um, that, that, that are, you know, part of Latin America. So. Mexico obviously is a good, is a, is a good example. Places like El Salvador, Guatemala, um, have a lot of migrants as well.
Um, so there's a lot of diversity in terms of where people are coming from. There's also a lot of diversity in terms of the skills that they have and the types of work that they're doing. So there are types of labor that are traditionally associated with, with foreign-born labor. Um, a lot of, so construction for example, has for many decades relied on foreign-born workers.
Um. Uh, building grounds, cleaning, maintenance type jobs as well. Agriculture relies very, very heavily, particularly in certain parts of the country, relies very heavily on foreign-born workers, but also, uh, the [00:05:00] tech sector, um, is, is incredibly dependent on foreign-born workers. Um, as you mentioned, uh, in the intro, um, big chunks of healthcare rely heavily on, on, on foreign-born workers.
Um, so there's a lot of diversity in terms of the skill sets that, that they're bringing, um, and the types of jobs that they're working in. So that's something that I think is also just not. Not all that well understood in general, and something that in the latest publication that we had, we, we, we, we tried to kind of basically provide this kind of objective understanding of what this population looks like.
Um, in, in order to kind of reveal some of those things that I think will surprise a lot of people.
Jerry: Yeah. And,
Justin: I.
Jerry: think, you know, the, the work that you do and, and many of our friends in the same sort of, you know, data collection, um, survey World is, is this notion of the importance of disaggregating some of the data, right? Because it's impor it's important to not paint the broad stroke and saying all. Foreign-born labors or all immigrants, or all international students, or all people from a certain continent. Um, because once we start to dig into the data, then we start to see like, oh, there is, like you said, complexity, diversity, and the [00:06:00] importance of the, the necessity rather of talking about these topics with nuance
Justin: Mm-hmm.
Jerry: help us, you know, get the better answers to help equip our business leaders to make the right decisions. Um, because I think, you know, sometimes, uh, when we say the term foreign born worker. Or a migrant worker, we have a specific image or something that we
Justin: Mm-hmm.
Jerry: and that's probably very far from what the data suggests. Um, that note, um, the research that you and the team at SHRM do, um, shows that foreign-born workers are disproportionately represented in both fast-growing economies or industries and essential ones, and they obviously play a increasingly vital role in our nation's economy. Um, why is that? And. Is that a, uh, what, what is the, uh, origin of that and how does it reflect the larger economic or policy dynamics that we're starting to see?
Justin: Yeah, that's a great question. So I mean, it is got several different factors. Um, I mean, one thing I would point out is that if I look at major occupational groups or major industries. Um, there are really no major groups like [00:07:00] that where foreign-born workers are unimportant. There's certainly a big variation in, in their importance, but really there's, there's, you'd be hard pressed to find a particular sector.
Um, of the economy where, where foreign-born workers are, are a completely negligible component of, of employment. Um, so, so there's certainly that. Now the reason for that in recent decades is, is complex. A, a, a big part of it is demographics. So one of the things that we talk about, um, in the data brief on the foreign-born, uh, population in the us um, is we pointed out that the, the native born population in the United States.
Um, has like, like basically every other developed country in the world has undergone this, uh, period of kind of rapid population aging. So if I was to look at, uh, foreign born and native born labor force participation rates, um, at the turn of the century, at the turn of the 21st century, um. I would find that they were, they, they were quite similar to each other.
But in the intervening 25 years, we've seen the native born rate sort of steadily decline. And that's basically being driven by the fact that the [00:08:00] native born population is getting progressively older and increasingly shifting into older age groups that have lower labor force attachment. So I've seen the native born labor force participation rates steadily decline.
Whereas the foreign born population has been consistently kind of repopulated by new immigrants who are disproportionately working age, especially prime working age. Um, and as a result that's kept that population comparatively young and comparatively, uh, more likely to participate in the labor force.
Um, so that's a, that's a big driver. Um, in, in the last couple decades, one big reason that formal workers have become more important is simply that the overall population has aged. And that means that the set of people that are working age has become increasingly foreign born. Um, and that's obviously had some big, some big effects.
Um, so that's, that's one major driver. I think it's also important to note that, you know, US History again has had, uh, kind of a long. Um, sort of cycles of, of rapid immigration and, and sort of constrained immigration. So, you know, for example, there was a [00:09:00] big boom in immigration in the 1840s, 1850s, another big boom in the late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, and then been periods of relative, uh, calm, often instigated by policy or by conflict.
So, for example, very little immigration in the 1930s and 1940s because of the Great Depression in World War ii. Um, in the kind of broader scheme of things. Since the 1960s, there's been sort of a steady, uh, rise in immigration. Um, again, kind of, uh, wavering with, with, in different periods. So for example, you see, you generally see slowdowns in recessions and things like that, or obviously during the initial phase of the pandemic, big slowdown in immigration.
Um, but generally speaking, um, in the last, uh, several decades, um. There have been a lot of incentives for, for migrants to come to the United States in terms of job opportunities, and at the same time, the native born population has aged, uh, meaning that we are increasingly relying on foreign born workers to fill roles.
Jerry: How has the, uh, the region of origin, when we look at, again, [00:10:00] we looking at the deed of, you know, where people are coming from,
Justin: Hmm.
Jerry: Has it had an impact on the educational background? You know, the, when we talk about, uh, foreign-born workers also, we sometimes don't get to talk about a significant chunk of it, which are the folks who come here to study and then
Justin: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Jerry: force.
Right? And, um, that's been a hot topic in the news as of late in terms of policy and, you know, um, immigration visas for students.
Justin: Mm-hmm.
Jerry: Tell us about your, what you see in the data and what you've studied in terms of the region of origin and its impact, or I guess its, um, you know, relationship to the educational background and the skillsets that you're starting to see both on the incline and on the decline.
Justin: Yeah, no. So we looked at those two topics sort of separately, so I'll just cover them one by one. In terms of, um, region of origin, one of the things that we looked at is, uh, just the share of migrants of recent migrants. Um, in any given year that we're coming from different regions across the world. And, and kind of a simple way to break this down [00:11:00] is to note that about 70 to 80% of migration in any given year is coming from either Asia or Latin America.
And the remain with the remaining 20 to 30% coming from other parts of the world. So, um, the other, the thing that's interesting about the last 20 or so years, if, if I'm recalling correctly, in the, in the report, we actually covered. Uh, we were talking about recent migrants, uh, from 2006 to 2023, uh, which was the latest year available at the time.
Um, and we basically found that the sort of the group that dominated in terms of the region of the world would vary from year to year. So for example, in the early 2000 tens in several years, uh, the largest source of migrants, uh, in terms of plurality was, was Asia. A lot of people coming in from the Philippines.
From China, from India. Those are big, the three big centers. But Korea also played a big role. Uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of other Southeast Asian countries, for example, played a big role, um, in that kind of boom, in migration from Asia. Um, and [00:12:00] in other years, the, the sort of balance has been that about, about, uh, about 35, 30 6% come from Latin America and the other 35, 30 6% come from, from Asia in more recent years, especially the last couple years.
Um, we have seen a shift towards, uh, more migrants coming from, from Latin America, which sort of mirrors what conditions looked like in the, in the sort of 2000, mid two thousands period. So if I recall, the first year, um, that we looked at was 2006. In that year, slightly over half of all recent migrants had come from Latin America.
That's very similar. Um, in 2023. In 2023. The number, I think the fraction was about 51%, 51.4 ish percent. I'll have to double check to see that number's correct. Um, we're coming from, we're coming from Latin America with another 30, a little bit less than 30% coming from Asia and the remainder coming from other parts of the world.
Um, so, so in terms of region of origin, that's kind of been the story. Um, it's, you know, interesting to note that in any given year, um, there's a real diversity of where people are coming from. It's really not just one [00:13:00] place. So even in a year, like 2023. Um, which was, which was a, a, a very big year for immigration from, uh, a place like Latin America.
It's still only accounted for just over half of all recent migrants. Um, so, so that's sort of an interesting, um, interesting thing to point out. And I think something that probably runs counter to people's expectations in terms of educational attainment, which we looked at sort of separately. A really interesting thing that we find is we have, uh, that we have that.
Foreign born people, um, coming to the United States tend to lie at sort of extreme ends of the educational attainment distribution. So on the one hand, they're much more likely to have less than a high school, uh, degree, um, relative to their native born counterparts. Um, but they're also slightly more likely to have a graduate or professional degree relative to their native border counterparts.
And what that kind of shows is that we have migrants coming to the United States. Um, with very different skill sets and very different goals in mind. So, for example, we have a lot of people coming to the US who are gonna be heavily involved in [00:14:00] agricultural work, heavily involved in, uh, construction type jobs or maintenance type jobs.
Um, and, and those workers will disproportionately have relatively low levels of educational attainment. But in contrast, we also have a lot of workers coming that have PhDs or are, you know, they're, they're, they're scientists or they have, they have advanced degrees of some kind, and they're playing a very vital role, um, in a wide range of industries, um, including tech, including healthcare, including life, physical and social sciences.
So there's, uh, there's a, the educational distribution kind of reflects that, that fact that, that we have. Um, immigrants that have a very, both very low and very high levels of educational attainment with relatively less concentration in terms of sort of intermediate levels of educational attainment.
Jerry: I mean, I think that makes, you know, total sense, right? Because people come here for opportunity. And
Justin: Yeah.
Jerry: speaking, and so whether it is to, you know, pursue more opportunity because of limitations of where you're coming from or because of a complete lack of opportunity and you believe that, you know, America can provide that, um, economic opportunity for you and [00:15:00] your family, um, you know, certainly something that is, is highly relevant to me, my family and the communities that I belong to in terms of looking at
Justin: Hmm.
Jerry: of my friends and, and family members come. Um, what, what does the data tell us about? The alleviation of, uh, skill shortages. 'cause we often talk, hear from the news about, you know, like you said, certain industries are predominantly known and in certain regional areas. As you've, uh, studied, uh, if you look at state data as well, the numbers vary greatly of the
Justin: Yeah, I.
Jerry: or the percentage of certain labors. you know, industries like construction, farm work, hospitality, um, and the, you know, the narrative is that they're there to fail the jobs that we are unable to fail as a country. And so how does that, uh, how has that played in the, uh, the tracking of the data? And then, you know, we'll talk a little bit about sort of, you know, are we able to forecast what that means going forward?
But, um, from the data that's available now, um, has it been a predominantly, has it been a predominant story about, uh, fulfilling the jobs that we can't fill?
Justin: Yeah, so that's [00:16:00] a really interesting question. So broadly speaking. Um, we were talking about demographics and population aging earlier. Um, and, and the re the important I think, relationship to understand is that, um, the US is currently just like many other countries around the world, in a situation where we consistently have a labor shortage, um, a, a good way to measure that.
A very common metric that we use to capture that, um, is something called the unemployed person per job opening ratio. It's literally just the ratio of unemployed people. To the number of job openings at any given time. And the idea here is that the numerator, the population of unemployed people, those are all the people.
Um, to be unemployed according to the current population survey definition, you have to not have a job, but be able to work and be actively looking for work. So that's sort of the set of people who could theoretically fill a job opening without vacating another one. Um, so we're not, uh, obviously we're not accounting people that already have a job, so that's the kind of our, our potential labor supply there for people that could fill open positions.
And then the denominator is just the number of job openings, the number of sort of the labor [00:17:00] demand for employers at a given point in time. So if I look at that ratio, it provides a nice high level sort of insight into whether or not there are theoretically enough people to, uh, fill the roles that are being demanded at a, at a given point in time.
Um, and so this is tracked in a, uh, survey called the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. It's a BLS Bureau of Labor Statistics Survey. Uh, that data go back to December of 2000. And they run to the present day. So one sort of interesting historical fact here is that before early 2018, that ratio had never been below one.
Basically, there had always been more unemployed people than there were job openings. So at least in theory, there were always enough people looking for work to fill every single job opening. Now, in fact, obviously there were more frictions. That prevent that from actually happening. There could be skills, mis mismatches, things like that.
But just in theory, historically, there have been more unemployed people than there have been job openings in more recent years since, uh, I think the first month would've been March of 2018, we've, it actually had that, that story has been flipped. So [00:18:00] there's consistently been fewer unemployed people than there have been job openings.
Meaning that even if there were no other frictions in the labor market, even if people had perfect skills, matches with any, um, job opening that they might fill. Even like, so if I was able to match every unemployed person to a job, I'd still have open positions at the end of that matching process. So, so there are literally not enough people to fill job openings that have been at any given point in time now, and that's consistently been the case with the, the exception of the initial phase, the pandemic due to shutdowns and, and things like that.
That's consistently been the case since March of 2018 and continues into the present day. So. The reason why I kind of go to the, you know, extent of, uh, or go to the kind of pains of, of describing that labor shortage is because that sort of explains the, the, the kind of increasingly critical role of immigration.
So a, a huge driver of that labor shortage is that the population is steadily aging. And even though we've seen consistently over time labor force participation increase among older age groups, it still has not been enough to offset, um, the fact [00:19:00] that we increasingly have people moving into higher. Um, into older age groups that have lower labor force participation.
And so among native born people that's been driving down labor force participation rates, it's basically been causing the the working age population to shrink. Relative to the overall population. Now what? And, and that means that, uh, you know, there are, there are sort of levers to, uh, to, to solve that problem.
But historically, one of the easiest levers, and in recent years, one of the, one of the most effective levers has been the, it has been a reliance on foreign-born people coming into the United States, um, to fill those roles. So, so in in, in short, the, the kind of story of the last couple of decades has been that, uh, in the United States particularly.
Uh, foreign-born workers have played a huge, uh, part in allowing the labor supply to continue to grow. Um, and that's something that if I look at, for example, uh, the Census Bureau has population projections.
Jerry: All right.
Justin: And most recently came out in 2023. If I look at their population projections going forward, we find that, um, that the kind of prime working age [00:20:00] population, that's the eight, the population of people age 25 to 54, who are kind of the backbone of the labor force, the growth of that population will depend very, very heavily on the level of immigration, um, going forward.
So that's, uh, the sort of, the expectation is that the reliance on foreign-born workers, uh, would continue to grow over time due to this demographic transition.
Jerry: So, uh, it's both a shift in the numerator and a denominator, right? That's making that shift. It's not
Justin: Well,
Jerry: that's student constriction.
Justin: Yes. So basically, um, the, if I, if I kind of think about labor supply over time, the, the biggest issue. Is that, um, labor supply growth is gonna be just determined by the number of people of a certain age group because there's a, there's a very strong correlation between the participation rate of, of a person and their age.
So in order to have a, uh, uh, a high enough. Supply of labor. I have to have a high enough population of people within the range of ages that are gonna be working. Um, and, [00:21:00] and migration has been a sort of a key factor in replenishing people that are in especially that prime working age group. So people 25 to, to 54.
Now, of course, you know, labor shortages. There's, there's sort of a long run story that is very much about demographics and population. Of course there are short run shocks that change this, right? So. For example, uh, uh, a global pandemic like COVID-19 will suddenly create a situation where there's a lot of unemployed people.
As was the case in, you know, the spring and summer of 2020, um, you know, a recession will create a temporary situation where there are, you know, uh, there's a rise in unemployment and labor supply is high relative to labor demand, but. Over a long enough time horizon. The demographic change that we're seeing in the US and indeed around the world, um, is, is leading towards that idea of, uh, the population is getting older and older.
And so the size of the working age population is shrinking relative to the overall population. And immigration, uh, plays a role in sort of rejuvenating, um, that, uh, that working age [00:22:00] group because the people that are coming to the country, again, because the motivation is dominantly to work, they tend to be working age.
Jerry: can't talk about labor participation without talking about wage, uh, and its relationship between, you know, supply and demand. Um, how do the skill sets of immigrant workers impact our domestic wage dynamics? Or are we seeing any measurable impacts or impacts on the compensation trends? And, and I guess, um, something to, to note when we study the data on both participation and wage, uh, how much of the data on undocumented immigrants are being included. Uh, obviously, you know, it's a little bit difficult to track or different ways to track it.
And
Justin: Mm-hmm.
Jerry: play a role in, its in the wage component.
Justin: Yeah. So, um, to kind of speak to the question generally, um, the answer is, is there's been a ton of research over the years about the effect of migration on labor market outcomes for native born, uh, workers with things like wage growth on unemployment being one of the big things that are [00:23:00] tracked. And broadly speaking, I mean, there's been a lot of work on this.
Uh, it's, I won't get into technical details, but it's actually a very difficult thing to measure. Um, because the, the, the choice that migrants make to, to, to, to move is, uh, we, we would call it endogenous. It's not something, it's not that people are randomly being assigned to different parts of the country.
And so it's, it's sort of like, uh, it's, it's something that it's not happening, uh, independent of labor market conditions. Um, so it's, it's a, it's a difficult, it, it's sort of a challenging thing to measure in that sense. But there have been. Different things that people have done in the past to try to get an accurate estimate of the kind of exogenous impact of new migrants on things like wages and unemployment.
And generally speaking, uh, the majority of those studies have found very limited impacts. Um, basically, uh, basically mild to non-existent negative effects for, for, for native-born uh, workers. And in fact, in some cases, the research has found that there's a strong complementarity between foreign-born workers.
And, uh, and native wound [00:24:00] workers, uh, oftentimes because they're not doing the same types of jobs now, I'd say one other thing to really point out, um, about the more recent his, about more recent history, about the last several years is that, you know, relative to 30 years ago, we're very much no longer in the situation where.
I mean, I, I guess to reword that a little bit, we're in a situation where because we have this persistent labor shortage, that concern, um, that, that, uh, even in the same industry where you might think of native born and former workers being substitutes, the concern of, uh, the kind of classic concern of new.
Migrants driving down wages or increasing unemployment among native born people is, is really dampened by the fact that we consistently don't have enough people to fill open positions. So, so the kind of classic concern that that really, you know, would've had merit, I. Um, decades ago is increasingly no longer a concern because, because there's consistently been too few people, um, to fill open positions.
So, so the idea of, of adding new people [00:25:00] through immigration is, is much less threatening in terms of the kind of classical effects that you might affect, that you might expect, like, like, like increasing unemployment or lowering wages. Um, so the studies to date that have tracked that generally find very mild effects in the first place, um, there's been research that shows that there's complementarities between foreign born and native war workers.
And in, and you know, just thinking about the demographics of more recent years and the consistent labor shortage, the fear, uh, that is associated with the sort of labor market or wage dynamics, um, associated with, with migration, I think, you know, are significantly less than they would've been, um, even just a couple of decades ago.
Jerry: Justin, I know you don't have a crystal ball and none of us do. But often, you know, uh, but leaders and audience members who are listening or watching wanna know sort of, you know, what can we look forward to? Right? It, it's obviously great to study the data, looking back and know where things are presently. Uh, think things are much harder to predict or to, you know, uh, to, to predict looking ahead. However, um, you know, as, as business leaders, we have to plan for [00:26:00] that and then to, uh, work around potential changes or, or shifts. Um. In your opinion, what are the biggest, what ifs business leaders should be watching for, um, immigrations in the news, often daily,
Justin: Mm-hmm.
Jerry: that impact, uh, both, you know, a a lot of different facets almost daily. Um, but as it retain, you know, as it affects our labor market, um, whether it's affecting it positively or, or negatively. And, and, and that's a subjective, uh, lens as well.
Justin: Mm-hmm.
Jerry: business leaders be looking for?
Justin: Well, I think that, you know, one thing I would point out is business leaders should be. Very closely following, particularly if they rely heavily on, foreign-born labor, or if they expect to rely heavily on foreign-born labor. they should be tracking very closely policy changes in things like Visa programs.
Basically trying to find all the avenues where they can bring in, obviously, legal of, of foreign-born workers to fill, uh, needed positions. Um, you know, the one big issue is that there's a lot of uncertainty as to how those programs are gonna be changed. Um, uh, how, [00:27:00] how available visas will be in the future.
Um, what the demand will be for those visas. Um, certainly there's a demand side, um, from, from us businesses wanting to issue visas to foreign born. Um, migrants, um, it's unclear, uh, what will happen in terms of the flow of foreign or migrants. So that's, that's a sort of a big issue of uncertainty going forward.
So, one thing I would say for business is just be aware of the policies, be aware of the processes so that you can, you can efficiently, um, move if you're, if you're trying to hire. foreign-born workers, or you're trying to sponsor them for a visa, be aware of how that process works so you can do that as efficiently as possible.
basically any business that is able to navigate that system effectively is gonna have a comparative advantage and, will therefore have an access to an important pool of labor. Um, you know, beyond that, it's, it's tough. As you mentioned, we, you know, don't have a crystal ball. Um, so it's, it's, I would say that we're in a very uncertain situation right now in terms of.
Understanding how, what the flow of migration is gonna look like, certainly within the next few [00:28:00] years. Um, and so right now, uh, I think the best advice I could say is try to, for businesses, try to understand the extent to which you rely on four one workers. Um, try to think about how that reliance will evolve over time and try to, uh, maximize your understanding of the systems that are in place that allow you to utilize foreign-born labor, um, and, and be able to navigate those systems as efficiently as possible.
Jerry: That's a wonderful answer. You know, it's, it's gonna be hard for all of us to predict, you know, what, what industries, what, what functions. There are regional biases here, um, in terms of, and, and the, you know, even without any of that, um, the business world is changing, right? With, with AI and
Justin: Hmm.
Jerry: I. Tariffs certainly impact the labor market in ways that are, are known and unknown as we look towards the future. Um, for my conversations with folks in higher education, uh, it could potentially impact the inflow of applicants from the
Justin: Mm-hmm.
Jerry: student pool in their desire or ability or, or to, to come study here. Um, and
Justin: Hmm.
Jerry: a lot is, is left to be seen. [00:29:00] Um. have to pay, pay attention to all of this. And then obviously preparing for, uh, to keep their businesses afloat and to make sure that they have a healthy, steady workflow. Um, for the executives in our audience, um, what are the key questions that they should be asking about immigration, um, workforce planning, uh, regional expansion, talent pipelines, and even d EI strategy.
Justin: Yeah, well, I, so I think that one thing certainly just to kind of reiterate is, is, you know, on the executive level, having that knowledge of the extent to which your firm already relies on former workers, um, I suspect that there are, there are some executives that, that actually don't have a top line answer to that question.
And so having that basic information, I think would be really critical. You mentioned this idea of expansion. So, so it is, it is absolutely true that we see huge variation across regions in the United States in terms of, um, the role that foreign board workers play. So in a place like California or New Jersey, for example, um, there, there are very, very large, um, foreign born populations, places like Texas, Florida, [00:30:00] New York, very similar story.
Um, places like, I'll just throw out some examples, Montana, West Virginia, um, other states like that have a much, much less, uh, much lower reliance on foreign-born workers. So understanding your sort of geographic context and what your local labor market looks like, that's also a, gonna play a big role. Um, so that would be another thing that executives should track.
Or if you're thinking about expanding into a new geo geographic area, you should understand, you know, what are the types of workers that you're trying to hire. And, and, and what are the pools of, or what are the populations of people that could plausibly fit that need? Um, in some places that will not involve, uh, a lot of foreign-born workers in other places, it will be critical.
So, for example, if you were, if you were a, a firm that, that, that was an agricultural firm and you wanted to. Um, open up operations in California, foreign born workers will absolutely play a central role, um, in, in, in, in whatever you're doing. 'cause they, they, they, they, uh, account for a huge fraction of agricultural workers in California.
In other parts of the United States, it won't be, uh, that will not be [00:31:00] as much of the case. So it depends on understanding your local labor market or the labor markets that you're expanding to, um, as an executive.
Jerry: Awesome. You know, just, I wanna thank you for, for taking the time to help us navigate, you know, what is an every evolving, definitely complex and, uh, you know, not an easy topic to, to talk about. And I'm really grateful for your expertise and your, your, your data, uh, knowledge on this. Um, what is final question here, what is the one thing leaders can do tomorrow to get ahead and to, stay ahead on the issue of immigration labor policy?
Justin: I think the best thing that, an executive can hope to do or any business can hope to do this point is just to be as up to date as possible on what the current policies are.
and to try to track very, very carefully about expectations about how those policies might change. Um, the, the, the unfortunate thing, I mean the sort of, you mentioned tariffs earlier, it's a very similar story with tariffs. It's just extremely hard to gauge what will actually be in place. [00:32:00] You know, in any timeframe into the future.
So what will be in place a year from now, two years from now even? 90 days from now, it's not a hundred percent clear what will necessarily be in place. So it's, it's very hard. This is an environment where it's very hard to be ahead of the curve. So I would say the best thing available is just making sure that you are absolutely up to date with the current state of, of what those policies look like.
And also not only what the policies look like, but understand what your firm is doing and how it's utilizing those policies. Because it could be that in the current policy environment. What a given business is doing is just suboptimal that they're not, that they're, they're not, uh, maximizing their ability to, uh, to, to, to, to, um, attract foreign-born workers.
Um, so that's another thing is understanding, um, not just the current policies, but how the degree to which your, which your, um, businesses is taking advantage of those policies.
Jerry: Awesome. Again, Justin. Thank you so much for making time. Um, you know, uh. By the time somebody listens to this episode, things may have evolved. And, uh, that's just the, you know, the complex and sort of the ever, ever evolving nature [00:33:00] of, you know, policy related things on business. And so, uh,
Justin: Hmm.
Jerry: uh, you know, we have you in our corner to help us navigate our own, you know, understanding of what is going on and, and what will be coming in the future.
Uh, Justin Ladner, senior labor economist here at SHRM, thank you so much for coming on. Tomorrowist. I'm Jerry Won, your host of Tomorrowist, and here's two A better tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in.
Justin: Thank you.