In Philly, an effort to stop ‘brain waste’ by helping highly skilled immigrants find better jobs

One immigration analyst calls it “brain waste.”

That’s the gap between the professional skills and education that college-educated immigrants bring to this country — including degrees in medicine, law, and engineering — and the lower-paying, less-skilled jobs they’re able to secure, often because their certifications are not recognized in the United States.

The Welcoming Center in Philadelphia is trying to shorten the divide through its International Professionals Program, which helps new arrivals move toward jobs where the expertise acquired in their homelands can be put to the fullest and best use.

On Thursday at its Center City office, the center will celebrate the 20 newest participants, recognizing each with a certificate of completion — and a backpack, to tote papers and supplies to work.

“We have an economy in which nearly every industry and profession is short of talent,” said Anuj Gupta, president and CEO of the Welcoming Center. “We think that IPP is a pipeline, not just for the participants to get on track to upper mobility. It’s a way to fill the pipeline for our region’s economic growth.”

Members of the latest class include an electrical engineer from Sudan, a doctor from Bangladesh, and a lawyer from Algeria.

The eight-week course provides training on resumé writing, interviewing, building a professional network, and applying for jobs — processes that can be very different in this country than in others.

The training is open to immigrants who live in Philadelphia, hold an international university degree or the professional equivalent, speak English, and possess work-authorization documents.

Sometimes, the paths forward can seem clear. An attorney new to the U.S. may seek work as a paralegal while studying to take the bar exam. Other times, the Welcoming Center works to match people with jobs that, while not directly in line with their profession, enable them to apply the critical-thinking and organizational skills they developed in their homelands.

In her native Brazil, Carolina Felicio, 27, was an architect, holding an MBA in architecture and interior design practice management.

Here, she’s working at T.J. Maxx.

She arrived in Philadelphia two years ago, when a transfer brought her husband to this country. The Welcoming Center program helped her hone her resumé, she said, and now she’s applying for jobs in her field and moving forward on licensing procedures.

“The program was very good for me,” said Felicio, who lives in the city’s Fairmount section. “I applied and have gotten some interviews.”

The example of a doctor-turned-cab-driver is cliché but true. With foreign medical degrees and other certifications not recognized, or else requiring expensive and time-consuming duplication, many skilled professionals are left to take lower-paying jobs.

That hurts individual families and the U.S. as a whole, as needs go unmet and the government misses out on billions in tax dollars.

The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research agency in Washington, D.C., issued a 2016 report on “brain waste” that found one out of every four immigrants with a college degree was relegated to a low-skill job or could not find work. Those immigrants missed out on an estimated $39 billion in wages, while the federal, state, and local governments lost more than $10 billion in potential taxes.

Recent MPI research found that in 2021, about 21% of college-educated immigrant workers were underutilized, compared to 17% of U.S.-born workers. Those figures are about the same in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey, MPI research showed.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says American businesses are creating hundreds of thousands of jobs each month — yet significant numbers of professional and business-service jobs are going unfilled. And a study by Korn Ferry, the Los-Angles-based global consultant, estimated the next seven years will see a world talent shortage of 85 million people. It urged governments and businesses to act now to educate their workforces.

In Venezuela, Marisol Fernandez-Bravo was a doctor of obstetrics and gynecology, a medical-school professor, and clinical researcher who served six years as a dean at the University of Zulia.

Today, three years after arriving in the U.S., she works as a teacher’s assistant in the Haverford Township School District.

Does she miss medicine?

“Of course,” she said. But to practice as an OB-GYN she would need to be certified, then do a residency. Requirements to teach in a medical school would be similar, and at 64, “I don’t have that kind of time,” she said.

Now she’s seeking employment more closely aligned to medicine, perhaps at a community college, teaching anatomy, or maybe at an organization that helps immigrants access health services.

“I love to work, I love to be active,” she said, describing her participation in other classes and learning.

The Welcoming Center helped her understand the vast cultural differences between working worlds, Fernandez-Bravo said, and helped her build the skills to begin applying for challenging jobs.

For instance, in this country, people use to-the-point resumés, not detailed CVs. In job interviews here, talking about yourself and your experience is mandatory. In Venezuela, it would be considered rude, she said.

Barriers to better jobs don’t rise solely around foreign credentials, MPI found. Immigrants also face negative perceptions around the quality of foreign education and experience, unfamiliarity with the U.S. labor market, limited English skills — and a shortage of programs to help them go forward.

The nonprofit Welcoming Center, which works to enhance economic opportunity for immigrants, was started by Anne O’Callaghan, an Irish physical therapist who came to the U.S. in 1970. She spent three years striving to become licensed in this country, at a time when physical therapists were in demand.

In 2003 she and others opened the Pennsylvania Immigrant Resource Center, which later became the Welcoming Center.

Gupta said the center initially focused on matching immigrants with any available job, but lately the focus has shifted toward attempting to align people’s skills with possible positions.

“It’s time to do more of it,” he said. “Any employer that is interested in growth, their pathway is going to come through immigrant talent. We can become the pipeline to help fuel that growth.”