Employment Support
Competing for Talent: What Role Can Employment- and Skills-Based Mobility Projects Play?: This policy brief explores the case for employment- and skills-based mobility projects, looking at how different types of cooperation can support legal migration pathways, as well as common challenges these projects face. It also discusses strategies for achieving economies of scale and these projects' unique value—including the chance they offer to test new migration corridors or new recruitment models, while broadening cooperation opportunities with partner countries.
How Immigrants and Their U.S.-Born Children Fit into the Future U.S. Labor Market: This report from Migration Policy Institute (MPI) examines the projected educational demands of future U.S. jobs and how well the education and training of today’s workers meets those demands. It also compares trends in the immigrant-origin population with those among U.S.-born adults with U.S.-born parents and explores the workforce and immigration policy implications of these findings.
Career Pathways for Internationally Trained Immigrants and Refugees: WES' new career pathways tool provides customized resources and information for those looking to re-enter fields like nursing and teaching, including easy-to-follow licensure requirements and job search tips.
Creating High Quality Newcomer Resumes: Template and Sample: These resources, developed by Switchboard, are specifically intended to assist case managers in preparing clients for employment and should be used as a guide alongside the accompanying blog post.
Answering FAQs on Creating Effective Newcomer Resumes and Using Switchboard’s Resume Template: This Switchboard blog post and the accompanying resume template and sample resume are designed to streamline the resume creation process, ensuring that clients’ resumes effectively communicate their unique skills and experiences to potential employers.
Employment Authorization Documentation Reference Guide For Refugee Service Providers in the U.S.: This guide seeks to clarify the types of documents that Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)-eligible populations can use for Form I-9, including alternative document combinations where applicable.
What Strategies Enhance Career Development for Newcomers? This evidence summary describes the state of current available evidence regarding strategies and interventions used to enhance career development for newcomers.
GUIDE: Establishing and Maintaining Employer Partnerships: This guide describes the importance of employer partnerships in the context of job development for ORR-eligible populations, identifies key considerations and benefits for employers and newcomer employees, and discusses how to implement best practices in job development.
Identifying and Reporting Hiring Discrimination against Newcomers: This webinar helps service providers identify and address hiring discrimination, with a particular focus on the rights of newcomers as employees. Two experts from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Immigrant and Employee Rights Section (IER) demystify the legal intricacies of prohibited discrimination under the law, including aspects of citizenship or immigration status discrimination, national origin discrimination, unfair documentary practices, and retaliation.
The Department of Homeland Security recently launched a national campaign to ensure that certain noncitizens who are eligible to apply for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) understand the process to apply. The campaign focuses on informing newly arriving parolees under category (c)(11) and individuals who have a pending asylum application about their eligibility to apply for an EAD. To support this campaign, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) sent hundreds of thousands of email and text notifications to eligible parolees and those with a pending asylum application in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole, Ukrainian, and Russian, to remind them to apply for an EAD. As part of this effort, they recently published information about working legally in the United States in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole, Ukrainian, and Russian.
Tipsheet: Contacting Potential Employer Partners: If you are a refugee service provider new to providing employment services, you may be wondering what to say when you reach out to a potential employer partner for the first time. This tip sheet provides a simple email template and phone script you can modify to fit the needs of your program and clients.
Roadblocks to Workforce Inclusion for Young Adult Immigrants: This report shows that young immigrants face five major roadblocks, from a lack of networks to communication barriers, while navigating the U.S. labor market and pathway to self-sufficiency.
Supporting the Career Pathways of Female Clients: Informed by field interviews, this information guide offers practical strategies for delivering gender-sensitive employment services to women from refugee, asylee, and other humanitarian immigrant backgrounds and for supporting women as they work to overcome common employment barriers.
Archived Webinar: Women @ Work Discuss Creative Strategies for Female Economic Empowerment: This webinar helps service providers identify successful and creative approaches to supporting the job readiness and career success of female clients and offers alternative career pathways for female clients who seek less traditional employment.
Department of Justice’s Immigrant Employment Rights (IER) division has employment links for both Ukrainians and Afghans in native language as well as worker and employer hotlines (staffed by real people!) These numbers can be used if employers are denying I-94s for employment for example
IER Worker Hotline: 1-800-255-7688
Employer Hotline: 1-800-255-8155
Employment Information for Ukrainians in the United States:
Employment Information Regarding Afghan Special Immigrant Visa Holders and Parolees:
Healthcare Apprenticeships Help Refugees Overcome Career Barriers: The apprenticeship career pathway model can address many of these barriers and help refugees connect to rewarding career pathways in healthcare.
Tip Sheet: Employment Rights Information: These information sheets were developed by the US DOJ Civil Rights Division Immigrant and Employee Rights Section to help Afghans and Ukrainians in the United States understand their employment rights.
Supporting Job Seekers with Backgrounds in Aviation: Ideas and Resources for Service Providers: In support of Afghan pilots who have resettled in the U.S., Upwardly Global published a landscape assessment and proposed program plan earlier this year.
Labor Market series, a data hub that highlights how immigration is critical to rebuilding a dynamic, prosperous U.S. economy for all. Our research dives into all sectors of the economy, from agriculture to high-tech, spanning from Maine to California.
Data Interactive: Labor Market Forecast 2022
Fact Sheet: Foreign-Born STEM Workers in the United States
Fact Sheet: Immigrants in the Meat and Dairy Industries
Six Tips for Quality Assurance of Employment Programs: Quality assurance is a program management system focused on ensuring staff meet employment program guidelines efficiently. Successful quality assurance (QA) improves program outcomes without increasing burdens on staff.
How Immigration Can Offset the U.S. Labor Shortage and Rising Inflation: The United States is struggling with a labor shortage due to a low level of workforce participation amid the pandemic and baby boomers reaching retirement age. Increased immigration could help change that.
The Workforce System and American Job Centers: Valuable Resources for Refugee Resettlement, a Switchboard blog post, includes information about the American Job Centers (AJCs) and how service providers can support their clients in accessing federal, state, and local employment services.
Accessing Employment and Training Programs, a Switchboard information guide, offers information about programs funded by the Department of Labor that can help clients become self-sufficient and work towards their personal career goals.
Accessing Employment and Training Programs This guide offers information about programs funded by the Department of Labor that can help clients become self-sufficient and work towards their personal career goals. Click here to read more.
Serving Jobseekers with Professional Backgrounds: Workforce Resources for Clients and Staff: Switchboard highlights some of the key resources UpGlo can extend to resettlement agencies as we all work to address the most common barriers for job seekers.
Amazon has launched an employment support program for refugees, called the Welcome Door program. The initiative will provide refugee and humanitarian-based immigrant employees with additional resources and support, as well as reimbursement for Employment Authorization Document fees.
Understanding and Accessing Department of Labor (DOL)-funded Employment and Training Programs for New Arrivals: In this webinar, DOL staff provided an overview of the public workforce system, including specific programs and services that apply to different target populations. Participants learned strategies to connect with their local workforce boards, American Job Centers, and Job Corps programs and how to access workforce services that are available to refugees. Click here to stream the recording and click here to read the accompanying blog post.
The Workforce System and American Job Centers: Valuable Resources for Refugee Resettlement: This Switchboard blog post includes information about the American Job Centers (AJCs) and how service providers can support their clients in accessing federal, state, and local employment services.
Effective Employment Services, an animated video from Switchboard, provides an overview of six key employment functions beginning with intake and assessment to post job-placement assistance. The video is accompanied by a glossary of key terms, a quiz, and a transcript. These resources are designed for new employment service providers and they can be incorporated into the onboarding process.
Employment Authorization Documents: Reference Guide for Refugee Service Providers, from Switchboard, covers the most important and commonly used authorization documents required for employment in the United States. It includes information on the form I-9, accepted documents typically held by ORR-eligible clients, possible combinations of documents based on immigration status, FAQs, and a list of resources to share with employers.
Refugees and Asylees Have the Right to Work: Overcoming Two Key Challenges when Communicating with Employers about Work Authorization: This blog post from Switchboard provides tips on overcoming two common challenges when employers request specific documents from refugees and asylees as they complete the I-9.
Remote Job Readiness Resources for Clients with Lower Levels of Digital Literacy: This post includes job readiness resources for supporting clients without online access and/or digital skills, informed by strategies refugee service providers have begun implementing nationwide.
Activities for Employment and Money Management are now available through the Cultural Orientation Resource Center’s (CORE) Activity Bank. You can use the activities and other information to create Cultural Orientation sessions that meet the language and literacy needs of your participants while also applying adult-learning principles, student-centered learning, and integrating digital technology. The Activity Bank also includes the following topics: Health, COVID-19, Role of the Resettlement Agency, and U.S. Laws.
National Origin Discrimination: Workplace Issues & Civil Rights Protections for Immigrant and Refugee Workers: Switchboard recently hosted a webinar that focused on the unique employment issues faced by immigrant and refugee workers. It included real case stories; information on federal anti-discrimination laws; and the EEOC’s role. Click here to stream the webinar.