WASHINGTON — Larry Kudlow, host of the former CNBC show “The Kudlow Report,” told the respected Joint Economic Committee Tuesday that immigrants – especially those with math and science skills — can play a large role in staffing a U.S. work force sorely in need of skilled employees.
Companies have the jobs but candidates lack the skill set.
Kudlow said immigration reform legislation can be a pro-growth proposition for the American economy. An immigration reform bill passed the Senate, but has stalled in the U.S. House.
“Increase visas for STEM people,” Kudlow said. There is a shortage of science candidates for available jobs.
Committee Vice Chairwoman, Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., agreed. “Ninety of the Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants.”
Kudlow, along with Jared Bernstein, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, met with the Joint Economic Committee (the rare panel with members from both the House and Senate) to check the pulse of an economy still coming back from the longest and deepest downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The experts and Sen. Klobuchar, agreed that there is a shortage of skilled labor in the U.S. Manufacturing companies are seeking skilled employees but there is a disconnect on how to get the proper training to the candidates.
Policy makers need to pull together with companies to develop the training for potential candidates, Kudlow said.
Klobuchar, D-Minn., agreed that manufacturing companies have jobs — they just can’t find skilled candidates to fill them all.
As the nation’s workforce shrinks at a never-before-seen-rate from baby boomers retirements, Kudlow said jobs are also going unfilled because those between the ages of 16 and 59 are not participating at rates comparable to preceding years.
According to Kudlow, the 2009 spending stimulus and the Federal Reserve stimulus both failed. The economy, now in recovery, would have come back faster had the government not intervened, he insisted.
Instead stimulus programs created incentives to avoid work, such as extended unemployment benefits, Kudlow said. “I don’t want to sound hard-hearted but it’s not in their interests to get off.”
Bernstein, former Chief Economist and Economic Advisor to Vice President Biden, disagreed.
“At five years old, the US economic recovery is finally showing signs of strength, particularly in the job market, where employment has accelerated in recent months. In fact, compared to the last recovery, payrolls have grown considerably faster at this stage, a fact that is more remarkable when one considers how much deeper the ‘Great Recession,’ was compared to the very short and mild recession that proceeded the 2000s expansion.”