Updating Schedule A could bring in more skilled immigrants and improve Americans’ quality of life

There are over 11 million vacant jobs in the U.S. today, and fears of an impending recession continue to rock precarious markets. To avoid this worst-case scenario, the Biden administration must act now. Updating Schedule A–a list which designates what occupations have a shortage of “able, willing, qualified, and available” U.S. workers–would make it easier to recruit international workers and offer some respite to the struggling labor market.

The latest Department of Labor (DOL) statistics indicate that for every 100 unemployed Americans, there are more than 190 open jobs. This means that even if every unemployed American were immediately qualified and willing to fill one of the currently vacant positions, there would still be over 5.3 million unfilled jobs. This leads to an array of problems, like  lower productivity, higher prices, supply chain delays, and worse consumer experiences.

Schedule A occupations benefit from expedited visa processing because DOL has determined there is a shortage of domestically available workers in those fields. But since it  hasn’t been updated since 1991, it mainly benefits physical therapists and nurses and doesn’t reflect the current labor shortages affecting the rest of the economy. Updating the list is a crucial step in supporting business recovery through targeted recruitment of valuable immigrant workers and subsequently driving down inflation.

It’s important to note that updating Schedule A will not increase the number of available visas. Instead, it would enable DOL to proactively determine the types of businesses and occupations that most need foreign labor, ensuring that a larger share of our limited visas could be utilized to fill the most urgently-needed roles. 

Businesses hiring for an occupation on this list can typically access the talent they need six months faster than other occupations. This is because careful labor market analysis has proven that the particular line of work is experiencing a domestic worker shortage and that the introduction of immigrants would not harm American employees.

Since Secretary of Labor Martin Walsh already has full authority to update Schedule A, it would not require congressional involvement — making it, in theory, a relatively simple overhaul.

It’s this relative simplicity that makes the 30-year inactivity so jarring. The American labor market undergoes dramatic enough changes in the short-run to warrant a refresh of the Schedule A occupation list, let alone three decades. And while various circumstances, including pandemic-era policies, skill mismatch, and urbanization, have contributed to the gap between available workers and open jobs, immigration has also played a significant role in recent years. 

In the five years before the pandemic, an average of 540,000 new green card holders arrived in the U.S. each year. Between 2020 and 2021, that average dropped to less than 250,000. While final numbers have not yet been released, 2022’s moderate recovery is still predicted to fall short of the pre-pandemic average, meaning that the U.S. likely has nearly 700,000 fewer new permanent immigrants than anticipated.

Many of these missing immigrants would likely have filled vital jobs in our economy and could have helped to stave off, in part, the current grim economic situation. Teachers, truck drivers, physicians, and engineers have repeatedly topped the list of the most frequent recipients of employment-based green cards, and these occupations continue to experience ongoing shortages that impact American consumers.

Congressional action will eventually be necessary to fully address the worker shortage. Given the fact that our immigration system is woefully outdated, such a comprehensive push is unlikely to happen in the short-run. In the meantime, an administrative update of Schedule A would allow the U.S. to maximize the benefits of our current system and would extend critical relief to struggling businesses and consumers. DOL Secretary Walsh should act immediately to bring Schedule A and its designations into the 21st century for the benefit of all Americans whose quality of life has plummeted due to the labor shortages and the immigrants whose skills and abilities are needlessly unutilized.  

Cecilia Esterline is an immigration research analyst at the Niskanen Center.