The nation’s largest manufacturing organization called on Congress to fix the “broken” immigration system and let foreign workers come into the country legally.
America has 800,000 manufacturing jobs open, and it’s essential to fill them immediately to remain competitive in the world marketplace, said Jay Timmons, CEO of the National Association of Manufacturing.
“We need Congress to fix the broken, unreliable immigration system,” Timmons said during a Wednesday media briefing at the Port of Los Angeles. “Clearly, we need border security. That’s an imperative. But we also need more avenues for people to come legally and to work.”
Manufacturers have even offered jobs to Ukrainians and Afghans who have been unable to secure American visas.
“We don’t have to wait for the next Congress to alleviate visa backlogs to help bring more employer-based immigrants into the U.S. legally and provide certainty for dreamers,” he said.
Timmons and the port’s director, Gene Seroka, discussed cargo numbers and the recession, saying it’s essential for politicians, manufacturers, port officials, and labor to work together for America to keep thriving. The number of cargo ships waiting off the coast of Southern California has dwindled from the pandemic’s peak as a steady stream of goods continued to arrive even off-season.
The port saw a 21% decrease in cargo container arrivals in September from the same time last year, primarily because goods have already arrived. September 2021 was the busiest month on record, with 436,196 containers offloaded from ships.
“We want to make things in America,” Timmons said. “We can’t always rely on other countries for things we need to supply.”
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He cited imports of health products and pharmaceuticals during the pandemic, and now it’s computer chips, which are in everything from phones to clocks.
Manufacturers are eyeing the global marketplace with uncertainty realizing that their costs are going up because of increased prices of raw materials, transportation, and logistics. And that’s not good for the economy, Timmons said.
“Two-thirds of our members believe that there is a recession that is looming, and they’re very concerned about uncertainty not only in a domestic but global economy. … This is [an] economy that we are not familiar with.”
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Seroka said America is already in a recession.
“We have had two consecutive quarters of economic decline,” he said. “What are we going to do? Continue to hunker down.”
