Do American College Students Perceive International Students As a Threat in the Job Market?
by Ghita Benslimane
New York, NY — Following President Trump’s election, several right-wing news organizations have attempted to portray international students living in the U.S. as a threat to American college students seeking jobs post grad. But do American students actually feel like international students would be taking away their jobs? And, if they do, would this be a valid sentiment?
In November 2016, far-right news site Breitbart published an article condemning the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which grants international students a work authorization period of up to three years post-grad, for negatively impacting American students’ ability to find jobs after graduation. “The OPT guest-worker program,” it wrote, “is bad for the many ordinary American graduates who are being shut out of more than 100,000 jobs — and who also face increased lifetime competition from imported, lower-wage foreign professionals.”
Breitbart did not explain how it got to the number 100,000 in determining how many jobs American graduates allegedly lose to international students each year. Moreover, the article pushes forth the opinion that international students are a threat to American students in the job search process. But is there any evidence to prove this? And do American students really perceive international students to be a threat in the job market?
I wanted to find out what American college students in New York City thought about the matter, so I set out to survey 70 of them across the following schools: Columbia University, New York University, Fordham, CUNY and others, about their views on how international students may be impacting the job market.
In responding to the question, “Do you feel international students should be able to stay and work in the U.S. after graduating?” more than 90% of the surveyed American students selected the option, “Yes, and indefinitely” as opposed to, “Yes, but only for a limited amount of time before they go back home.”
When asked if international students who get hired in the U.S. post grad would be taking away jobs from American graduates, 62% of those surveyed responded, “No, international students wouldn’t be the reason I couldn’t get hired,” while 33.8% said international students were increasing competition, but didn’t agree that international students were “stealing jobs.” Only one student of those surveyed responded, “Yes, American graduates are at a disadvantage in the job market because of international students,” as seen by the blue sliver of data below:
Clearly, the average American student in New York City doesn’t agree with the notion that international students pose a threat to them finding a job post grad, a notion that’s also been defended in a report by the Center for Immigration Studies, a non-profit research organization in favor of lower immigration numbers. In fact, more than half of students, when asked how confident they felt about finding a job post grad, picked four on a scale of one to five, with five being the most confident:
When those surveyed were asked why they responded the way they did about international students and their impact on the job market, the nature of the answers varied:
“International students bring invaluable perspective to the classroom and, later, to the workplace,” one student said. “That is not the sole reason U.S. employers should hire them, but everyone benefits when the workforce is more diverse. I have had friends who had to move back to their [home] countries because they couldn’t get visas.”
Some answers took on a more humorous tone. One screenwriting student at Fordham University wrote that she didn’t think international students would be taking away her job because she wasn’t “going to get hired anyways.” Another wrote: “I don’t blame other people for my problems :)”
Meanwhile, some other students said they believed that denying someone the opportunity to live and work in the United States stood against the country’s values. “It seems fundamentally un-American to deny people the chance to work and make a life here just because they aren’t U.S. citizens/nationals,” one student said. “That’s antithetical to our national ethos and the mythology we’ve created of how we as a nation came to be.”
I was wondering if, throughout my research, I’d come across an answer that could perhaps be considered as more closely aligned Breitbart’s rhetoric, and I did: “I could barely get a summer internship, so I’m feeling doubtful about getting a job,” one student said. “International students got offers for internship positions at big name companies, whereas I could only get my only offer at a little local place. International students have a bigger advantage in the American job market compared to me, who is an American citizen.”
The idea, however, that international students are at an advantage compared to American citizens can be easily refuted by simply Googling the few options available to international students intending to obtain work authorization. Here’s a primer:
For a majority of international students, the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, as outlined by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, (USCIS) is one that lasts only a year, and an OPT extension of 24-months is only an option for graduates with degrees in in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields.
Beyond OPT authorization, pathways to more long-term work visas, from the international student perspective, are limited. The H-1B work visa, for example, which is highly coveted by many international student graduates hoping to remain in the country, only grants 85,000 visas each year, with 20,000 of those visas reserved for those with master’s degrees. In recent years, the number of H-1B applicants has fluctuated around 200,000 submitted petitions and, every April, USCIS runs a random selection to determine which applications will be reviewed. This means more than half of petitions annually get tossed into the ether of USCIS paperwork.
Getting hired while on OPT in the first place, let alone convincing an employer to sponsor an H-1B visa, can also be a challenging prospect, as confirmed by many international students themselves. Therefore, suggesting that foreign students are at an advantage in the US compared to American citizens in the job market might be a bit of a stretch. International students undeniably bear additional, significant challenges in the job search process compared to the American graduate.
“From the start,” says Sun Yu, an international student at Columbia University, “it’s very difficult to get a job in the United States. So if [an international student] is able to get a job, this probably means they’re very smart. They’re probably at the top of their class.”
When asked how she thought international students were impacting the job market, Sun Yu recognized the increased competition posed by there simply being more people competing for jobs, but said she thought this competition is “inspiring Americans to study even more to improve their skills to get a job.”
While there isn’t substantial data on how the OPT program may be hindering American graduates from getting jobs after school, the support expressed by American students in New York City for their international classmates in this survey stands in line with data that shows that, ultimately, high-skilled workers (a category international students would later be comprised in) contribute a great deal to the US economy and to the increasing of wages of American workers. American college students in New York City, therefore, are arguably rightfully welcoming of their international counterparts, and there is substantial evidence to prove that their continued employment in the United States would benefit them too.
A report published by the American Immigration Council in April 2016, for example, details how H-1B workers “complement U.S. workers, fill employment gaps in many STEM occupations, and expand job opportunities for all.”
A study of unemployment rates in the US from 2004 to 2016 showed that occupations where H-1B visas were widely used displayed lower unemployment rates than the national unemployment rate. This portion of the study included a useful graph, using statistics provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Current Population Survey:
And it’s not just the unemployment rate that is benefiting from the H-1B program. “From the creation of the H-1B program in 1990 to 2010,” states the report, “H-1B-driven increases in STEM workers were associated with a significant increase in wages for college-educated, U.S.-born workers in 219 U.S. cities.” In other words, Americans workers in STEM fields reported higher wages as a result of the H-1B program.
Even a 2008 study by The Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank, supports the idea that expanding the availability of H-1B visas would lead to more American jobs. Its report, titled “More H-1B Visas, More American Jobs, A Better Economy,” indicates that H-1B applicants fill employment gaps where companies haven’t been able to find enough Americans to do certain jobs. “Raising the cap on H-1B visas for skilled workers,” the report says, “would allow American businesses to expand operations here in the United States, creating more jobs and higher wages for American workers.”
Limiting H-1B visas for international students, some experts say, can be detrimental to the US economy. Immigration attorney Leslie DiTrani, who has been practicing immigration law for over 20 years, says, “We make it practically impossible for [international students] to use their skills to grow our economy. It’s very shortsighted of us.”
CUNY Citizenship Now! Director Allan Wernick maintains a similar perspective. When asked if he believes immigrants are taking away American jobs, Wernick said, “I think it’s impossible for our country to continue to think that workers should not be able to cross borders as easily as goods and services are crossing borders, because if we have a restriction towards workers, then the workers are just going to go abroad.”
“I don’t see restricting immigration as benefiting U.S. workers in any way, and I think most economists would agree with that,” Wernick added.
If anything, given evidence that proves how American graduates will ultimately benefit from having international students engage in successful, continued employment in the US, we should perhaps look to other, more important barriers American college students may face in looking for jobs (robots!).
