Career Services

Asians and Pacific Islanders in the U.S. Labor Force: Contributions and Challenges

May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, which celebrates Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States.

According to the Library of Congress, "The month of May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. The majority of the workers who laid the tracks were Chinese immigrants."

AAPIs (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) represent over 30 countries and ethnic groups and speak over 100 languages.

One of the greatest contributions from AAPI workers is the building of the first transcontinental railroad. The majority of the workers were Chinese, and many of these workers died from the freezing winters and the backbreaking and dangerous work conditions. The United  States Labor Secretary, Tom Perez, in his blog, They Helped Build a Railroad and a Nation: Honoring the Chinese Railroad Workers, honors the Chinese workers and advocates for today's most vulnerable AAPI workers that include Filipino health care workers, Korean grocers, South Asian taxi drivers, and Vietnamese nail salon workers. Secretary Perez asserts that the Department of Labor's prorities are also priorities for AAPI communities.

One of the major challenges for the most vulnerable AAPI workers is unemployment. Portia Wu, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment and Training, in her blog, Unemployment Challenges for AAPI Workers, points out that Asian Americans, as a group, had the lowest unemployment rate, 5.2 percent in 2013, while the national unemployment rate is 7.4 percent. However, the Vietnamese and smaller Asian populations like Laotians, Cambodians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Hmong, Burmese and Nepalese had an unemployment rate of 41.7 percent in 2013. In addressing the challenges of unemployment, the Department of Labor offers variety of employment and training programs as well as the Self Employment Assistance initiative.

Asian American families  place a high value on education. According to the U S Department of Labor, in 2013,  AAPIs with a bachelor degree or higher accounts for over 53.4 percent of the population, which is substantially higher than the next closest group, Whites, at 31.9 percent. However, a wide disparity exists among this high educational attainment group: Indian- Americans have the highest rate of college graduates (76.1 percent), followed by Korean-Americans (58.7 percent),  and Chinese -Americans (56.8 percent), while on the lower end, Vietnames-Americans (29.5 percent) and Native Hawaian and Pacific Islanders, at 26.5 percent, have a college degree. Nearly one-third only have a high school education. In addressing the disparity in educational attainment within this group and other populations, the Department of Labor offers free job training programs that lead toward  an associate or bachelor's degree. The Labor Department also works with Registered Apprenticeship sponsors and colleges to turn years of apprenticeship training into college credits. Besides preparing workers with a college education to meet the needs of the job market in the next decade, the Labor Department also offers green cards to foreign graduates students in STEM education. You can learn more from the Deputy of Labor through Chris Lu's Blog, Expanding Opportunity for AAPI Communities Through Education.

A recent Galup poll reveals that nearly 30 percent of AAPI workers have reported discrimination in the workplace. The White House Initiative on Asian -Americans and Pacific IslandersWHIAAPIalong with an interagency working group, launched the Vulnerable Worker Project. The purpose of this initiative is to listen to and understand employment and labor issues of this popultion, to educate them about their federal civil rights and labor protection, and develop enforcement and policy priorities for federal agencies to address their labor and employment issues. Phil Tom, in his blog, Speaking Up for Vulnerable AAPI Workers, states that "it's a moral imperative to ensure that the services and protections offered by the federal government are available to all."

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This year, the Labor Department introduces seasonally adjusted data for Asians from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Population Survey. Dr. Heidi Shierholz, Chief Economist of the Department of Labor, in her blog, Better AAPI Data for Better AAPI Policies, states that data help the Department understand how they can better serve diverse communities, target resources, and assess programs.