Temporary Foreign Workers in US – The numbers

Many Americans are aware of the often-cited estimate that approximately 11 million unauthorized immigrants reside in the United States. However, the U.S. government does not have an adequate, reliable estimate for the total number of temporary foreign workers who are authorized to be employed in the U.S. labor market in the main nonimmigrant visa classifications that authorize employment. This report seeks to add to the limited existing literature on the size and makeup of temporary foreign worker programs in the United States by reviewing and assessing the available data in the main nonimmigrant visa classifications that authorize employment and then devising an estimate of the number of temporary foreign workers who were employed in the United States during either the entire fiscal year 2013 or some part of it. We estimate that 1.42 million temporary foreign workers were employed in the United States with nonimmigrant visas in fiscal 2013. This number is approximately equal to 1 percent of the U.S. labor force. Our estimates by individual visa classification are shown in the table below:

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at  Temporary foreign workers by the numbers: New estimates by visa classification | Economic Policy Institute