The Skills of Immigrants: What PIAAC Tells Us

This Migration Policy Institute event marks the launch of the report Through an Immigrant Lens: PIAAC Assessment of the Competencies of Adults in the United States, which uses data from the 2012 Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) to describe the literacy, numeracy, and computer skills of adults in the United States, including both immigrants and the native born. Report authors Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix of MPI present their findings and discuss what their analysis reveals about the literacy of the first- and second-generation immigrant population in the United States, the U.S. education and workforce training system, and the implications for the future of the U.S. labor market and its role in the global economy. Panelists Demetra Smith Nightingale of the U.S. Department of Labor and Andy Van Kleunen of the National Skills Coalition present commentaries setting the results in the context of the United States workforce and education policies. Finally, MPI’s Demetrios G. Papademetriou sets the results in the global context.