Evidently, immigrants with college degrees are more likely to be working in Starbuck’s than Americans in America. “Highly educated immigrants, meaning those who arrive with a college degree or more, often find that their skills do not fully transfer to the U.S. labor market,” Jason Richwine writes in a paper for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). “Many end up holding jobs for which they are overqualified based on their paper credentials.”
Richwine also found that:
• “Among immigrants with a college degree, 20 percent have a low-skill (bottom third) occupation, compared to 7 percent of natives.
• “Nearly 30 percent of Mexican immigrants with a college degree have a low-skill occupation, as do 35 percent of Central American immigrants.
• “About 85 percent of Canadian immigrants with at least a college degree have a high-skill (top third) occupation, compared to 73 percent of natives and 53 percent of Mexican immigrants.
• “Among immigrants with an advanced degree, 37 percent have an elite-skill (top tenth) occupation, compared to 50 percent of natives.
• “Length of U.S. residency is not strongly correlated with occupational skill level.”
