Partnership for a New American Economy

U.S. News & World Report
April 20, 2012

America has long been a country where almost everyone, including the poor and unskilled, could get a job. Given the will to do a reasonable day's work, a job was a passport to economic and social well-being; it was the fount of self-esteem and the foundation of family life. Indeed, work was Life.

More than 15 million Americans no longer have that passport to Life. Think of it as roughly the entire population of the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Arkansas, Iowa, and Oklahoma, all standing idle—every man, woman, and child. The traditional breadwinners, namely men between the ages of 25 and 54, are among those hardest hit. According to an Investor's Business Daily/TIPP poll, some 25 percent of households include someone who is unemployed and looking for work. As well as laying waste to work, to the equivalent of losing every job created in the last decade, the Great Recession has visited us with reduced incomes, declining home equity, and a growing contraction in credit.

Government leaders — at least some of those present — actually seemed to believe they could, through legislation and spending, increase entrepreneurship and innovation. They asked questions such as: What legislation can we enact to build innovation ecosystems, facilitate mentorship, and teach entrepreneurship? They didn’t seem to understand that these are things entrepreneurs do—not governments.

Bloomberg News
April 19, 2012

Technology companies want the U.S. to bolster cybersecurity, ease immigration restrictions and let funds held abroad be repatriated, said a group with members including Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE)

“We want to make sure that America is a more competitive nation,” Carl Guardino, chief executive officer of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, said today in an interview at Bloomberg’s offices in Washington.

Members include software makers Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, and San Jose, California-based Adobe, along with scientific-testing equipment manufacturer Agilent Technologies Inc. (A) of Santa Clara, California, and cancer- treatment company Varian Medical Systems Inc. (VAR) of Palo Alto, California, according to the leadership group’s website. Its members employ one in three workers in California’s Silicon Valley, Guardino said.

Click here to read the full story.

The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel
April 19, 2012

If your organization employs highly skilled foreign nationals, then you have probably heard grumblings over the past few weeks regarding the recent retrogression in employment-based immigrant visa cutoff dates for advanced degree or exceptional ability China-mainland and India-born workers. If the term “retrogression” is not part of your lexicon, please allow us to bring you up to speed – supply and demand.

America’s immigration system limits the number of employment-based immigrant visas available each fiscal year at approximately 140,000; this covers the sponsored worker and family members. The 140,000 allocation is divided among five preference categories corresponding to the nature of employment and skills of the foreign worker. With an apportionment of 40,040 plus any unused first-preference immigrant visas, the second preference is reserved for advanced-degree professionals and foreign nationals of exceptional ability in the sciences, arts or business.

The law further caps the number of immigrant visas assignable to natives of any single country at seven percent of the United States’ worldwide total. This limitation has resulted in disparate wait times for many highly skilled foreign nationals, with China-mainland and India-born workers being most impacted.

Click here to read the full story.

National Journal
April 18, 2012

Immigrants working in the U.S. are just as likely as the native born to have a college degree, but they are far more likely to lack a high school diploma, according to a report released in March by the Brookings Institution.

Immigrant labor is concentrated in two different worlds of employment, representing disproportionately large shares in industries as divergent as agriculture and information technology, the report says, citing 2010 data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Immigrants account for nearly a quarter of those working in information technology and high-tech manufacturing, the report says. In high-skilled industries with a large number of immigrant workers, like healthcare and life sciences, foreign-born workers are more likely than their native counterparts to have a bachelor’s degree.

Click here to read the full story.