IMMIGRANTS FOUNDED 28% OF NEW BUSINESSES IN 2011

A new report issued this week by the Partnership for a New America Economy states that immigrants started 28 percent of all new businesses in the U.S. in 2011, which is a very impressive number considering immigrants are less than 13% of the U.S. population, so immigrants are twice as likely to be entrepreneurs than American born.
The report is based on the Census Bureau data. Business start-up rate among immigrants has jumped 50 percent since 1996 while the start-up rate for native-born Americans, declined by 10 percent during the same period.
The report recommends that if we want the U.S. economy to recoup, pass immigration reform so that more immigrants can start new businesses. This is what we have been telling everyone for years.
The report was authored by Robert Fairlie, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. It found that immigrant-founded businesses tended to be smaller than other businesses, but collectively they post more than $775 billion in revenue and employ one out of every 10 workers at privately owned companies.
I agree. Immigration reform is sorely needed and we need an immediate fix to the legal immigration crisis we are facing, shortage of H-1B and immigrant visa numbers and Congress is still doing nothing in the name of protecting the American worker. This just causes outsourcing of these jobs outside the U.S.
The report is available here: http://www.renewoureconomy.org/index.php?q=open-for-business

HIGH DEMAND FOR H-1B WORKERS IN METROPOLITAN AREAS

Another story broke recently in the news reiterating the fact that American businesses cannot fill some jobs fast enough and there are not enough qualified employees out there. Most of these jobs include highly paid positions in science, including computer science, engineering and healthcare.
Most of the demand is in metropolitan areas that are mostly populated, such as the tri-state area around New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania who have the greatest need for the highly skilled H-1B visa workers.
According to this new report, called 'The Search for Skills: Demanding for H-1B Immigrant Workers in U.S. Metropolitan Areas', by the Brookings Institute, the bulk of the demand for H-1B workers, from the Northeast U.S., accounts for 16.3 percent of all H-1B visas issued. The top four metropolitan areas, each with between 14,000 to 18,000 H-1B visa worker requests, are Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, California, and the greater Washington, D.C., area.
The report recommends key policy changes, such as creating an independent commission that can recommend timely changes to immigration policy to respond more quickly to high-demand job markets (to possibly increase the cap), target H-1B visa fees to geographical areas to upgrade the skills of the existing workforce, especially where needed.
The report is available at: http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2012/07/18-h1b-visas-labor-immigration#overview Congress really needs to put its act together and increase the quota. It is really hurting businesses and individuals alike.