Recession frames US migration debate

The Professional Regulatory Commission reported that 32,617 out of 77,901 passed the Nurse License Examination in various cities nationwide. The less than 50 percent passing rate is horrible as usual, a testament to the quality of local nursing education. It is probably safe to say that most of those who failed were duped by scam operators who put up nursing schools like hot pandesal outlets simply because there is demand. Government (CHED) is too inept to stop the scam from ensnaring more victims.

As for the 32,617 who passed, most of them are likely now busy preparing to leave for jobs abroad. And given salary levels here, who can blame them? But they must be ready to be disappointed if they are dreaming America and Western Europe. The recession has made the job market in developed countries more protectionist than ever because of the high unemployment rate.

There may be so-called green shoots of hope in the US economy these days but many economists see a jobless recovery in the horizon. Recent visitors from the US relate tales of woe in US Main Street as hundreds of thousands of American workers continue to lose their jobs in a brutal economic downturn.

It is therefore not surprising to see the recession essentially framing current debates on US immigration policy. Job protectionism is the name of the game. Outsourcing, for instance, is now a dirty word for many Americans, specially as it refers to jobs going to countries where the cost of labor is much lower than it is in the US.

Also very controversial is the H-1B visa which allows American companies particularly in the tech sector to bring in supposedly trained workers to temporarily work in the US. Companies want to increase the quota of such visas issued each year but there is a rising tide of protests from jobless Americans who say the visa is just a means to get cheap foreign labor and deprive them of work.

Even if there is no debate that the US has a large shortage of nurses, there is a big debate on how to solve it. US hospitals want to import these nurses from countries like the Philippines. Unions representing American nurses insist that up to 500,000 American registered nurses have chosen not to practice their profession—fully one-fifth of the current RN workforce of 2.5 million— because the working conditions are bad and the remuneration are not sufficient for the work required.

The unions recognize that many US hospitals do lack the right number of nurses on staff, but they still insist issuing more visas is not the answer. They are calling for improved training capacity, working conditions, and pay. While the current recession has encouraged some American nurses who had left the profession to return, a recent Businessweek article pointed out, about 100,000 positions remain unfilled. Experts say that number could triple or quadruple by 2025.

Hospitals are desperate to fill in their vacancies. In this regard, a bill has been filed in the US Congress that would allow 20,000 additional nurses to enter the US each year for the next three years as a temporary measure to fill the gap. If the bill doesn’t pass on its own, Businessweek reports lawmakers may include it in a comprehensive immigration reform package.

But our young nurses should not get their hopes too high. Leaders of nurses’ unions do not like this solution and they have political clout. They say importing workers can lower incentives to improve working conditions. Businessweek quotes Ann Converso, president of United American Nurses, which represents 50,000 RNs, urging more resources thrown into training instead.

“We believe thousands and thousands of RNs everyone seems to agree on is that the US needs more capacity to train nurses. Since 2002, enrollments at nursing schools have increased so much that up to 50,000 qualified applicants are turned away each year from training programs.” Another industry leader says “We don’t need more immigration; we need to increase capacity and grow our own workforce.”

Even President Obama seems to agree with the unions. “The notion that we would have to import nurses makes absolutely no sense,” Obama said at a health-care forum in March. “There are a lot of people [in the US] who would love to be in that helping profession, and yet we just aren’t providing the resources to get them trained—that’s something we’ve got to fix.”

And Mr. Obama is fixing the problem by providing funding in the $787 billion economic stimulus package of some $500 million to address shortages of health workers in the US, with about $100 million to promote nursing and increase capacity at US nurse-training schools.

The Obama administration has shown more interest in the problem than its predecessor primarily because they are also worried that the shortage of nurses will negatively impact on their goal of expanding health coverage to millions of the uninsured. The rising unemployment rate is a major influence to their crafting of a response.

It isn’t just the nurses. The surge of sentiment favoring increased job protectionism is manifested in the increased difficulty of other skilled immigrants in getting the necessary papers for their continued stay in the US Businessweek in a lead article this week, reports that many skilled immigrants have given up and are going back home in a kind of reverse brain drain.

“A long wait for a green card, coupled with the soft US economy, is prompting an exodus of some of the best and brightest a number of highly skilled immigrants preparing to leave the US as the nation’s economy slows. With the US unemployment rate approaching double digits, job opportunities are diminishing and calls to restrict immigration have gotten louder. Those who favor tightening the rules argue that US citizens should get first priority for jobs.”

One unresolved issue, Businessweek points out, is how to define a “skilled” immigrant. “While many politicians would support policies to attract the most educated and highly paid, there is more controversy over foreign workers who come into the US on H-1B visas, which require only a bachelor’s degree and, in many cases, modest salaries.” It could happen that future immigration rules would limit such visas to PhDs and proven entrepreneurial geniuses only.

Many economists, Businessweek reports, think the departure of top talent in technology and science may undercut the prospects for a recovery in the US “We benefit from a flow of really smart people coming here to work in our companies and start new ones,” David Hart, a professor of public policy at George Mason University in Arlington, Va. told Businessweek. “It’s important that the US remain a magnet for people who fuel innovation and growth.”

But it is not clear how the Obama Administration and the US Congress will approach a proposed comprehensive immigration reform later this year. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Senate immigration subcommittee, said in June that US policy will aim to “encourage the world’s best and brightest individuals to come to the US and create the new technologies and businesses…but must discourage businesses from using our immigration laws as a means to obtain temporary and less expensive foreign labor.”

I take that to mean that our nursing graduates can no longer look at the US for assured jobs in the future. The politics of a post recession immigration policy will make migration to the US a lot more difficult for job seekers, even if there is a demand for their services there as in the case of the nurses. –Boo Chanco, Philippine Star