WASHINGTON, DC — With immigration a primary driver of future U.S. labor force growth, young immigrants are poised to be a crucial resource. Yet some of the estimated 3.5 million immigrants in their late teens and early 20s are falling through the cracks of the systems intended to ensure their career and educational success, often because of failure to account for the unique challenges they face in building new lives in the United States. The public workforce system could be a key tool to better support the long-term economic self-sufficiency, mobility and societal contributions of immigrant youth, a new policy brief from the Migration Policy Institute’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy notes. The brief focuses on the WIOA Youth program authorized under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and administered by the U.S. Labor Department, drawing on interviews and analysis of policies, WIOA plans and other relevant documents from Florida, New Mexico, Texas and Virginia. The analysis, Set Up for Success: Supporting Immigrant Youth Through the Workforce Development System, finds that the WIOA Youth program presents a promising, if underutilized, opportunity to serve the career and education needs of foreign-born youth and help them more fully contribute to local economies due to its ability to combine workforce development activities with individualized navigational assistance and supportive services. Improvements do not necessarily require a complete overhaul of policies, systems and services, but rather targeted adjustments of existing programs, analyst Jacob Hofstetter writes. The brief highlights important ways in which state and local policymakers and workforce development providers can more fully leverage their services, in particular under the WIOA Youth program, to better support the economic trajectories of eligible immigrant youth, including by: - offering individualized approaches that combine educational and workforce development components and supportive services to promote the success and integration of immigrant youth, particularly those who arrived in their middle school years or later.
- incorporating English instruction for youth with limited English proficiency into workforce development programs, potentially via the use of Integrated Education and Training (IET) as well as multi-lingual or bridge models.
- engaging adult education providers as critical partners and also positioning them as central actors within local immigrant integration ecosystems.
- greater consideration by state agencies and workforce development boards of the immigrant youth population in their area, the share of eligible young people they comprise and the extent to which they can be served under existing funding levels.
Learning from such lessons is beneficial not only for the economies and communities that young immigrants can contribute to, but also to immigrant youth themselves, the brief notes. Without access to effective educational or workforce development services, many of these youth who face barriers may struggle to find upward economic and integration trajectories over the long term. “Failing to support the education and career success of this population, many of whom will be part of the U.S. workforce for decades to come, could lead many of these young people to become mired in low-wage employment and deprive the U.S. economy of their fuller contributions,” Hofstetter writes. “Beyond economic considerations, supporting the linguistic and civic integration of young immigrants into American society is also critically important. Both sets of aims can be advanced with effective youth workforce services.” Find the policy brief here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/immigrant-youth-workforce-development. For all National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy work, visit: www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/national-center-immigrant-integration-policy. |
