We cannot afford to leave immigrants out of the workforce diversity conversation

Earlier this year, Apple announced it was embarking on an ambitious $100 million initiative aimed at promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in the technology industry. Apple is one of many major companies in recent months to make such promises following last year’s historic protests around racial injustice. The movement has prompted countless business roundtables and sweeping public commitments to increasing workforce diversity.

Too often, however, new Americans are absent from these conversations.

The United States is home to 40 million immigrants. The majority of them are Hispanic, and a growing number of them are Black. There are nearly 2 million college-educated immigrants and refugees who are unemployed or underemployed in the U.S. The disparate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has likely widened this gap, with foreign-born workers seeing sharper job losses since last March than those born in the U.S. As we begin the national conversation about an inclusive recovery, we cannot afford to leave immigrant workers out of our DEI goals.

The lingering effects of the pandemic follow four years of the Donald Trump administration and its embrace of restrictive immigration policies that dramatically limited the opportunities available to immigrants and refugees. In his first months in office, President Joe Biden worked to quickly reverse many of these policies and announced there will be many more changes to come. Such changes are reopening pathways for companies to make good on their diversity promises.

Doing so, however, will require much more of companies than simply hiring more immigrant workers. Immigrants, refugees and first-generation Americans face an array of systemic barriers to economic mobility while often lacking the language skills to better advocate for themselves. Astonishingly, more than 20 million U.S. adults have limited proficiency in English, and the U.S. meets the needs of just 4 percent of these learners. 

For working-age adults, a lack of English skills can translate to earning as much as 40 percent less than their peers who are proficient in the language. This lack of English proficiency, however, has nothing to do with a worker’s job skills, potential or competence. Indeed, organizations that offer workers English training and support are discovering that they are able to tap into a new and diverse talent pool.

For example, the University of Maryland provides access to a virtual English language training program for its staff. These employees report feeling more empowered to interact with colleagues and students, as well as pursue their own career dreams. One such employee, a housekeeper named Hana Tadese, came to the U.S. from Ethiopia and, with improved English proficiency, has decided to work toward a degree in public health. The University of Maryland has now expanded the program to other departments.

Health care organizations are also leveraging the power of language by learning to help employ and train more immigrant workers. The U.S. has long faced a shortage of health care workers, made all the worse by higher levels of burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, health care providers have begun to realize that in order to offer equitable and inclusive care, they must be able to more fully communicate with their diverse community of patients.

Since 2019, Maine’s largest health care network, MaineHealth, has worked with the Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center to help immigrant workers identify potential career paths while enrolling them in three to six months of online English language learning. Likewise, California’s Futuro Health provides English language training to speakers of other languages interested in careers in Allied Healthcare in an effort to provide better care for its diverse population of patients.

Importantly, this kind of language training is designed for the needs of the workplace and worker — using content that is relevant to a learner’s job and career aspirations and provided through easily accessible platforms. These are the kinds of programs employers must embrace if they are serious about diversity and equity.

Hiring and providing training and support to immigrants will not only help boost the career prospects of millions of workers, but will help create a workforce that better reflects the communities that companies and organizations aim to serve. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and a national reckoning with structural racism, this is the path to a stronger and more inclusive workforce that leaves nobody behind.