Workforce Navigation Programs Fostering Inclusive Economies Across States
In April, the U.S. Department of Labor released its Bridging the Gap for New Americans study of the barriers and opportunities facing internationally educated immigrants and refugees seeking to resume their careers in the United States. The study provides needed guidance for local, state, and federal stakeholders to further strengthen the inclusion of these workers in an economy increasingly in need of their skills and experience. Key to the study are several recommendations, including increasing funding for workforce navigation programs tailored to immigrant and refugee professionals.
U.S. economic and workforce inclusion is more important than ever. Amid ongoing labor shortages across the country, an estimated two million college-educated immigrants and refugees are currently unemployed and underemployed despite having robust international experience and work authorization. Challenges to full economic inclusion include English language skills, difficulty navigating the American work culture, and occupational licensing requirements that are often complex, expensive, and time-consuming.
Despite the challenges, there are several approaches that American Job Centers can take to promote economic inclusion. Centers can adapt and improve their existing services, such as one-on-one career coaching, résumé development, and referrals to job training, as well as expand service offerings to include recommendations for credential evaluation providers. These improvements would increase the ability of workforce centers to serve New Americans and support their ability to find skill and career-aligned employment.
Workforce navigators (e.g., specific staff trained to support internationally educated professionals living and working in communities served by American Job Centers) can also be a great addition to existing career services programs. These individuals, many of whom are New Americans themselves, can support job seekers while also increasing access to workforce services through outreach and education to immigrant communities. Many American Job Centers have already successfully tailored and expanded services to other underserved populations, such as veterans or youth formerly in foster care, and these New American workforce navigators can build upon the successes of those programs.
States across the country have been taking action to expand workforce inclusion. The following examples from Colorado, Maine, and Michigan provide models for other states considering launching their own initiatives for internationally trained residents in their communities.
Colorado’s Global Talent Task Force
In 2022, Colorado formed the Global Talent Task Force (GTTF) to identify barriers to employment affecting internationally trained professionals and make recommendations to better harness their talents. The task force’s final report in December 2023 included recommendations for funding workforce navigator programs at workforce centers (i.e, American Job Centers) and increasing access to these programs through New American navigators. The majority of Colorado’s workforce centers are administered at the local level by counties, rather than at the state level, and counties and regions with high immigrant populations, such as Denver, have already begun to implement tailored navigation services for their New American residents.
Maine’s Peer Workforce Navigator Program
In 2022, Maine’s Department of Labor allocated an initial $1 million over two years to a Peer Workforce Navigator Program. The program assists individuals in communities hit hardest by the pandemic, including immigrant and refugee communities, with addressing basic needs and finding employment. Peer navigators who shared lived experience with the communities they served were recruited and worked to connect community members to stable jobs, training, and public benefits. Weekly walk-in clinics helped immigrants and refugees with résumé writing and job interviews. In Portland, Prosperity Maine’s clinics proved to be successful, with over 1,000 participants attending these job readiness workshops in the past year.
Michigan International Talent Solutions
First launched by the Office of Global Michigan in 2017, the Michigan International Talent Solutions (MITS) program provided one-on-one career coaching, credential evaluation assistance, and training resources to New American job seekers throughout the state. Now called Michigan Global Talent Initiative (MGTI) and managed by statewide non-profit Global Detroit, the program has been expanded to support the attraction, retention, and placement of job seekers at several MichiganWorks! (for example, American Job Center) agencies.
MGTI’s upskilling component offers internationally trained professionals one-on-one navigator services, such as career coaching, assistance with obtaining credential evaluations, support with relicensing, and referrals for skills training or contextualized English language education. The program works in tandem with a pre-existing network of Refugee and Immigrant Navigators who help clients access wraparound services, such as transportation, housing, public benefits, and immigration legal services.
The urgency for immigrant and refugee economic inclusion is real—the U.S. faces projected labor shortages in the thousands by the 2030s, especially in health care professions. Funding workforce navigator programs in American Job Centers is one critical way to address this issue, and examples from Colorado, Maine, and Michigan offer models for other communities looking to utilize their global talent pool to bridge the gap. The federal government, and the U.S. Department of Labor in particular, can assist states and local workforce boards by providing additional guidance and funding incentives.
In addition to the Labor Department’s recommendations, WES published a full set of recommendations in response to the Bridging the Gap for New Americans study. Learn more and share the full report.
