Key to Filling Manufacturing Jobs: Immigration Reform

Rick Grimaldi and Lori Armstrong Halber created an article entitled “Key to Filling Manufacturing Jobs: Immigration Reform” for Region's Business.

Comprehensive reform of the broken immigration system will have the single greatest impact on the resurgence of manufacturing in the United States.

Even in times of high unemployment, manufacturers struggle to fill jobs: according to a survey by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute, some 600,000 manufacturing jobs are open because employers cannot find workers with the right skills. The survey found five percent of current manufacturing jobs are unfilled due to lack of qualified candidates, 67 percent of manufacturers have a moderate to severe shortage of qualified workers, and 56 percent expect the shortage to increase in the next three to five years. Nearly two in three manufacturing executives say workforce shortages or skills deficiencies have a significant impact on their ability to expand operations or improve productivity.

To read the full article, please visit Region's Business.