Immigrants make it all work

Another story telling about the shortage of local workers and the need for immigrants and immigration. DP

Some industries depend on international recruiting efforts

By Jill Bryce, Sara Foss, Gazette Reporters

dailygazette.com: CAPITAL REGION — When Marco Tomakin met his wife-to-be, El Bandalan, she had already signed a contract to become a nurse at Albany Medical Center. So he signed one, too.

The couple moved to Albany from the Philippines in 2003. They had both trained in government-run nursing schools in their home country, and the idea of making more money in the U.S. appealed to them. They weren’t alone.

Since 2002, 341 Filipino nurses have come to work at Albany Medical Center, and there are 250 Filipino nurses now on staff. This hasn’t happened by accident; the hospital has actively recruited nurses from the Philippines. It’s just one of Albany Medical Center’s strategies for dealing with a chronic, nationwide shortage in nurses, according to Greg McGarry, a spokesman for the hospital. “At any given time, we have 60 to 70 open positions,” he said.

Hospitals throughout the country have successfully recruited nurses from the Philippines, which is why Albany Medical Center decided to give it a try, McGarry said. “We were aware that in the Philippines there are a number of well-trained nurses looking for work,” he said. “They’re fluent in English. They assimilate quite readily. Most of them have adjusted well with our homegrown staff.”

Immigrants can be found working in almost every sector of the Capital Region’s labor force. Many of them occupy low-wage, low-skill jobs, but there’s another group of immigrants, one that’s highly educated and well-paid, who are recruited to work here by businesses and schools unable to find enough qualified Americans to fill their work force. Though only 5 percent of the upstate population is foreign born, about 20 percent of the professors in upstate universities are immigrants. In health care, the fastest growing sector of the upstate economy, immigrants make up 35 percent of physicians and surgeons. Immigrants also comprise 20 percent of computer software engineers.

The University at Albany aggressively recruits scientists from overseas.
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