LINCOLN — Nebraska business leaders are saying it’s “glaringly apparent” that the state won’t be able to meet its workforce needs without more immigrants, according to a consultant to the Nebraska Chamber Foundation.

The North Carolina-based Economic Leadership group was commissioned by the research arm of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry to assess the state’s economic competitiveness.

The consulting group in turn produced a trio of reports. One examined how Huskers stack up among peer states in an array of areas. Another zeroed in on the manufacturing industry, and the third looked at immigration as it relates to Nebraska’s workforce.

In all three studies, which included focus groups and interviews, immigration surfaced as a top solution to fill the state’s workforce gaps and ward off economic decline.

According to the researchers, Nebraskans who provided feedback overwhelmingly consider the current federal system that regulates immigration as “broken,” and they are concerned the topic of immigration has become “toxic” and confusing.

“They understood that there’s a stigma around illegal immigration but stressed that legal paths must be improved,” the consulting group wrote. “They felt that America needs to ‘close the back door’ but ‘open the front door’ for a greater volume of legal immigration.”

As one participant put it, there is “no other subset” of available workers.

‘Headwinds Are Coming’

To be sure, tapping a foreign-born population to address worker scarcity in Nebraska is not a novel concept — and discussions entwining the two have been amplified in the last couple of years within the state’s business chambers and other groups including Omaha Together One Community.

Chamber president Bryan Slone said the Economic Leadership team was brought in to bring nonpartisan, data-driven information and analysis. He called the workforce shortage one of the state’s largest impediments to growth and opportunity.

“There are headwinds coming,” Slone said. “We are just at the front end of it.”

Fresh off a trip to see Nebraska’s congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., Slone told the Nebraska Examiner that the chamber supports the report’s general direction and recommendations.

But he also said that the chamber’s position on more politically charged points, such as creating legal paths for undocumented immigrants in the United States, would wait to be clarified as time goes on and as specific legislation is proposed in Congress.

To start, he said, he can see the chamber getting behind and pushing for proposals to simplify and improve access to various categories of work visas for foreign-born workers.

Three top temporary visa programs used in Nebraska are H1-B, H2-A and H2-B visas, which open the door to workers ranging from highly educated foreign professionals to agricultural and construction jobs.

“If the federal quotas for these programs were increased, this could help Nebraska companies utilize these programs even more,” the report said.

Slone said he sees the chamber also advocating for so-called Dreamers — immigrants allowed to be in the country under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program created by President Barack Obama in 2012. Up to 3,000 younger DACA recipients live in Nebraska (among more than 550,000 nationwide), but their permanent status is tenuous, as they must reapply every two years for protections.

“One of the first things Congress should be able to deal with is DACA, the Dreamers … who came here as children … and still don’t have permanent status,” said Slone.

The Nebraska Legislature’s handling of a DACA-related benefit earlier this year, however, reflects how conflicting the matter can be. Nebraska lawmakers at one point voted overwhelmingly, 36-8, for a measure to allow DACA recipients to serve in law enforcement in Nebraska, similar to at least three other states.

U.S. Rep. Mike Flood R-Neb., a former state senator, was among those who were critical of the possibility. He raised questions about whether a DACA recipient would be considered a credible witness in court. Within about two weeks, state lawmakers did an about-face and on a 25-11 vote tabled the measure that had aimed to help address the shortage of law enforcement officers across the state.

Nebraska Standing Out

In its 36-page report analyzing immigration and the workforce, the consulting team acknowledged that a labor shortage is troubling to states nationwide — but it dug into why Nebraska stands out in its workforce woes.

Claiming one of the country’s highest labor force participation rates and one of the lowest unemployment rates, the Husker state consistently lists “well over” 50,000 job openings, the report said.

And with demographic trends pointing to a continued insufficient supply of domestic and Nebraska-born workers, the team said, bold action is necessary.

Among steps it urged Nebraska to consider:

• Launch a high-profile immigrant recruitment strategy that broadcasts “the state’s intent to become the most welcoming place in America for foreign-born residents.” Such a campaign, the group said, could appeal to newly arriving migrants and refugees as well as immigrants living elsewhere in the United States.
• Create a state welcoming advisory board and regional support teams. They would develop strategies to deliver key services to newcomers who speak a language other than English.
• Engage with Nebraska’s congressional delegation to push federal immigration reform, which would include additional work visas and a path to U.S. citizenship for undocumented workers already in Nebraska.

The researchers said gaps widened in the workforce during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Many baby boomers over age 55, for example, chose not to return to the workplace.

Lurking were demographic trends that further stunted recovery. The aging of the population and a decline in the fertility rate were among them.

“Nebraska’s economy is feeling the impact as the number of unemployed workers for each job opening is under 0.5 workers,” the report said. “The state’s ratio has long been lower than the national average.”

Relatively Small But Growing

While many coastal and mountain states have been able to grow their economies and workforces through people relocating there from elsewhere in the country, in Nebraska more taxpayers have left the state than have moved into it during the last decade.

Meanwhile, the consultants said, the foreign-born population — while still a relatively small slice of the overall state population, about 7% or 140,000 people — was an increasing portion of Nebraska’s growth over the past 20 years.

Nebraska was ranked No. 8 among states with fast-growing foreign-born populations from 2012 to 2022 (by percentage change), according to figures compiled by the Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

During more recent years, 2020 through 2022, the state fell to No. 29 among states for fast-growing foreign-born populations, CPAR said.

In 2022, the most recent year available, Nebraska’s foreign born accounted for about 71 of every 1,000 persons — that’s lower than the national average and ranked Nebraska 26th of the 50 states.

Nebraskans who were born internationally tend to be concentrated in a small number of counties in the state: eight of 93 counties have foreign-born populations greater than 10%.

An advocacy group for area  Latinos, the League of United Latin American Citizens, said efforts to broaden employment opportunities for newcomers in Nebraska could be “a dream come true” for many of them and for worker-starved employers.

But LULAC state director Elsa Ramon Aranda said her national organization is on guard to ensure all voices are represented, including lesser-skilled workers who are newer to the country.

“They need a livable wage and workforce protections,” she said. 

According to the study, foreign-born Nebraskans currently work in jobs ranging from cooks and meat-processing workers to teachers and physicians. Slone cited demand in the state for a wide variety of talent.

He believes Nebraska’s economic future depends on its readiness to adapt to the shifting demographics.

“Outside of foreign-born individuals, we are not growing very much at all in this state,” said Slone. “And we’re not anywhere near the foreign-born worker numbers we could have, given all the jobs that we have.”

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/05/28/nebraska-urged-to-become-most-we...