Mark Berzins struggles to find enough kitchen staff for its 17 bars and restaurants in the area of Denver.
The metropolis has an unemployment rate slightly below the national average and a highly educated population that avoids manual labor. While some employers may attract foreign workers through the H1-B visa programthat is not an option for cooks and dishwashers.
Instead, Berzins is taking advantage of a city program to hire asylum seekersmostly from South and Central America, who have obtained federal work permits. So far, it has employed a dozen people in kitchens where managers speak Spanish.
“The situation has become so serious that almost all the kitchens of Denver are chronically understaffed“They’re trying to make college a priority for Denver public school graduates. When that happens, those aren’t the chefs of the future.”
The Denver program and similar initiatives in places like New York and North Dakota seek to bridge the gap between companies that need workers and migrants who are desperate for paid jobs. Advocates present the programs as a win-win solution for businesses struggling to hire, a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of migrants who have sought a new life in the United States since 2022, and relief for cities and states that have burst their budgets to feed and house them. In short, the goal is to boost local economies and help reduce government spending.
Immigration policy: a central issue for the US elections
Berzins, a self-described “radical centrist” who has made campaign donations to both Democrats and Republicans, is trying to stay out of immigration policy, a top issue for voters in key swing states in this year’s presidential election.
He is aware that there is concern that a wave of new arrivals will displace the native workersbut says she can’t find anyone to fill their kitchen positions. She knows some people view immigrants as a burden, particularly in the so-called sanctuary cities they were bused to, but says allowing them to work will reduce dependence on handouts.
“You can’t have it both ways: You can’t complain and say these guys are a burden on the system and we have to house them and all that, and then complain when they take a job so they can pay their own way,” Berzins said. “You can choose one or the other.”
He Denver program seeks to help asylum seekers with English and computer skillsas well as obtaining federal work authorization. Asylum seekers can generally obtain work permits about six months after applying for legal status, although paperwork delays can slow the process.
Denver requires that at least One person per household must participate in the program if they wish to receive city services.which for months has been one of the main destinations for migrants after reaching the southern border of the United States.
In North Dakotawhich has the second-lowest unemployment rate in the United States, state officials recently created the Office of Legal Immigration to address widespread worker shortages across all industries. In a report released in May, the agency identified newcomers with work authorization as a potential resource for local businesses willing to accept them.
It’s still in its early stages, but the hope is that the agency can advise companies on how to navigate the paperwork and help newcomers acclimate to the sparsely populated state and its cold winters.
“I sum it up in six words,” said North Dakota state Sen. Tim Mathern, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation that created the department last year.We need them. They need us.”.
Foreign-born workers make up less than 7 percent of the state’s workforce, compared with the national average of about 19 percent. Still, the foreign-born population nearly tripled between 2010 and 2023, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis..
What are the jobs with the most foreign-born workers?
Much of the influx has been concentrated in healthcare sector jobs, particularly to address the Nursing shortage after the pandemicIt also helped offset the effect of an aging population on the workforce, said Erick Garcia Luna, regional outreach director for the Minneapolis Federal Reserve.
Mathern acknowledged that there is some political tension related to the idea of receiving asylum seekers in North Dakota, where Republicans have won every presidential election since 1968He is disappointed that the word “Legal” was added to the department’s name during the legislative process, but he understands it was an attempt to deflect criticism. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans.
He and his allies blame his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, for not doing enough to stem arrivals at the southern border.
A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, published in April, concluded that the arrival of immigrants between 2019 and 2022 marginally increased the wages of native workersOther studies have found that immigration tends to put downward pressure on wages, particularly for less-skilled workers. In the first three months of the year, the United States approved some 380,000 work authorizations for asylum seekers, the most in a single quarter since the start of the migration crisis.
Giovanni Peri, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis, and an author of the NBER study, said the U.S. immigration system prioritizes highly skilled workers, such as doctors or those in the technology sector, but labor shortages are most acute in jobs that require fewer skills.
“Construction workers, healthcare personnel who do not have a university degree, people in the food and hospitality sector“…there are no real visas for these people to come,” Peri said. “Asylum seeking is the only way for these people to get in.”
The city of New York has seen the arrival of about 200,000 immigrants since 2022. The state Department of Labor is trying to connect immigrants with work permits with employers willing to hire them. Since then, the state has identified more than 45,000 jobs that asylum seekers could apply for, particularly in the catering and hospitality sectors.
Immigrant advocates and industry groups say they have seen more people with work authorization in recent months, meaning local businesses can put these people to work.
They ask to reduce waiting times to authorize jobs in the US
At La Colmena, a Staten Island nonprofit, immigrants can earn the safety certification needed for construction and day labor jobs. The organization is also running a pilot program that teaches hospitality skills for hotel work. The American Hotel & Lodging Association, a national interest group, advocates for reducing wait times for work authorization as a way to address the worker shortage..
When the first busloads of migrants appeared in cities like New York and Denver two years ago, the underground economies of those cities were saturated with potential day laborers, delivery people and restaurant workers. Now, the goal is to incorporate them into the formal economy.
Denver’s WorkReady program has 350 people enrolled. The city has spent 74 million dollars in the emergency response to migrants, including some $90 per person per day in shelters, and the idea is that helping people find legal work will reduce costs overall. So far, more than 100 employers have expressed interest in hiring eligible workers, according to Jon Ewing, a city spokesman.
“The hurdle is getting them out of survival mode because they’ve been in a shelter forever and they say, ‘We’ll do anything for money,’” Ewing said. “And we say, ‘No, no, we want to know what you want to do for the rest of your life.’”
