Immigrant Backlash Not Impacting Hiring of Job Candidates Born Outside the United States, Finds New CareerBuilder Survey

- One-third of employers plan to hire immigrant workers in 2017, 16 percent in Q2

- The majority of U.S. workers say they are not concerned about immigrants taking U.S. jobs

- IT, financial services, manufacturing among the top industries hiring immigrant workers

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Apr 19, 2017, 04:03 ET

CHICAGO and ATLANTA, April 19, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In the midst of ongoing debate around immigration, U.S. employers plan to reach beyond borders to help fill U.S. jobs. According to a new CareerBuilder survey, a third of employers (33 percent) say they plan to hire immigrant workers in 2017, with 16 percent planning to do so in the second quarter.

While 35 percent of workers voiced concern about immigrants taking U.S. jobs in general, the vast majority of workers (90 percent) don't have any concerns about immigrant workers taking their own jobs.

CareerBuilder's latest study on immigration was conducted online by Harris Poll from February 16 to March 9, 2017 and included representative samples of 2,380 full-time employers and 3,215 full-time workers across industries and company sizes in the private sector.

Compensation for Immigrant Workers
There has been much discourse around how much immigrants earn compared to other workers, but from the employer's perspective, they don't see much of a difference, if at all. Of employers who hire immigrant workers, the vast majority (80 percent) say that they pay the same to both U.S. born workers and immigrants working in the same roles. Twelve percent of these employers reported that they pay immigrants less while 9 percent reported that they pay immigrants more.

Job Functions for Immigrant Workers
The types of functional positons non-U.S. born workers are being recruited to fill varies from industry to industry. Among employers who are hiring immigrant workers this year, this includes:

Technical (42 percent)
Administrative (31 percent)
Manual labor (31 percent)
Sales (30 percent)
Creative (29 percent)
Financial (25 percent)
Managerial (23 percent)

"Immigrant workers continue to play an integral part in the U.S. workforce and economy," said Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer for CareerBuilder. "A significant number of U.S. employers are hiring workers from other countries in an effort to navigate around the growing skills gap and fill increasingly complex and rapidly evolving roles."

Top Industries Hiring Foreign Born Workers
Immigrant workers looking for employment can expect to find opportunities across multiple industries, with IT housing the largest percentage of employers who plan to hire them this year:

IT (50 percent)
Financial Services (38 percent)
Professional & Business Services (37 percent)
Manufacturing (30 percent)
Transportation¹ (30 percent)
Health care (21 percent)
Retail (18 percent)

Immigrant Hiring by Company Size
Plans to hire immigrant workers in 2017 are consistent across companies of all sizes, and especially with larger companies, which tend to have more job openings in general:

1-50 employees: 16 percent
51-250 employees: 35 percent
251-500 employees: 46 percent
501+ employees: 42 percent

Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder among 2,380 hiring and human resource managers (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government) and 3,215 employees (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government) between February 16 and March 9, 2017 (percentages for some questions are based on a subset, based on their responses to certain questions). With pure probability samples of 2,380 and 3,215, one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have sampling errors of +/- 2.01 and +/- 1.73 percentage points, respectively. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.

About CareerBuilder®
CareerBuilder is a global, end-to-end human capital solutions company focused on helping employers find, hire and manage great talent. Combining advertising, software and services, CareerBuilder leads the industry in recruiting solutions, employment screening and human capital management. It also operates top job sites around the world. Owned by TEGNA Inc. (NYSE:TGNA), Tribune Media (NYSE:TRCO) and McClatchy (NYSE:MNI), CareerBuilder and its subsidiaries operate in the United States, Europe, South America, Canada and Asia. For more information, visit www.careerbuilder.com.

Media Contact
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¹Base size less than 100

SOURCE CareerBuilder