Immigrant Workforce Training for Manufacturing

Educating the Immigrant Workforce: Practice in the Manufacturing Industry

Immigrants are crucial to the maintenance and growth of the U.S. workforce. In the coming decades, there will be jobs for immigrants with all levels of skills, and manufacturers, as well as other employers, will continue to need and hire immigrants. It is sound economic sense to implement strategies and models that improve the skills of immigrants entering the workforce—and that streamline their ability to keep pace with changes in industry and to succeed in higher-wage, more skilled jobs.

JFF and the Manufacturing Institute, National Association of Manufacturers, are partners in Educating the Immigrant Workforce, a research project to identify promising practices by manufacturing employers to train their non-English speaking workforce.

According to a Manufacturing Institute report, Closing the Immigrant Skills Gap, immigrants are the fastest-growing segment of the workforce and will be in high demand as the competition for skilled workers heats up. However, 88 percent of the manufacturers responding to a national survey conducted in partnership with JFF and the Urban Institute cited poor English skills among immigrant workers.

Read about Educating the Immigrant Workforce

Download Closing the Immigrant Skills Gap