Almost 11 million U.S. workers are still facing unemployment in the wake of COVID-19, but Upwardly Global is happy to share a silver lining as we look to the future: Employers are still hiring for good jobs in areas where our community brings experience and skill.
Last night, we were pleased to host an important conversation for our new Ambassadors group about the chance that the digital economy presents for immigrants and refugees and other diverse candidates, with leaders and friends from Microsoft, Google, Accenture and Lumina Foundation. The upshot: with the right approach, we can rebuild and do so in a more inclusive way that expands opportunity.
That’s why Upwardly Global has added focus to our existing coaching program, deepening work in our five, highest-demand career communities aligning upskilling, support from industry-experts, and access to cohort-based learning for job seekers, and peer-peer engagement.
In recent months, a growing number of employers have committed to filling high-demand roles in thoughtful, inclusive ways. Advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is an opportunity to not only address long-standing systemic barriers and inequality in our country, but to also boost resilience and innovation in our workforce.
We’re proud that:
40+ leading companies are participating in a bimonthly Upwardly Global Roundtable to tangibly support DEI promises and ensure the inclusion of immigrants and refugees, building on outcomesof our design sessions in spring 2020;
75+ job seekers in the engineering and business operations sectors are being supported by Cummins, a key grantor and employer partner. Cummins is also partnering with Upwardly Global to facilitate hands-on volunteer opportunities for 60+ employee volunteers.
90+ participants attended a recent webinar on data science careers convened by Upwardly Global, Berkeley Institute of Data Science (BIDS), and Accenture – a fantastic example of the types of panels and expert career pathway support that we are offering job seekers through key partnerships in high need industries;
Get involved in this work! Learn more about our career communities at this link; if you are an employer interested in partnering with us on DEI or hiring efforts, click here; and if you can, help us achieve our ambitious goals to help our job seekers and our country by donating– thank you!
We appreciate your support of our work & mission.
Jina Krause-Vilmar
President & CEO
Upwardly Global
Stories of Success
Ángel had built a successful IT career in El Salvador when he received long-awaited news: he’d been approved for a green card to reunite with his family in the U.S. Learn about how Upwardly Global and Google partnered to open opportunities for Ángel. Upwardly Global is expanding the partnership to include more credential pathways and reach more jobseekers. Ángel landed a career that allows him to contribute his high-demand tech skills during these challenging times.
Policy Updates
Just weeks in to the new Biden-Harris Administration and the 117th Congress, we’ve seen many promising steps in advancing immigrant & refugee workforce inclusion at the federal level:
The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 includes many exciting provisions that would meaningfully advance the inclusion of immigrants & refugees in the U.S. workforce, including a federal study on employment barriers for skilled immigrants and refugees, language that was crafted by Upwardly Global and partners in the field; funding to improve access to skilling and ESL supports; and a pilot program to advance this work at state and local levels.
The National Office of New Americans Act would create infrastructure for a permanent federal-level agency to champion immigrant inclusion across agencies and coordinate efforts across state and local communities;
Upwardly Global will continue to be a resource to the White House, Congress, and our field in building a full federal agenda on immigrant inclusion for our community of immigrant and refugee professionals, who are too often overlooked. See our five policy priorities here. For more information about our policy work, contact Sara McElmurry.
Staffing Updates
Continuing more than a decade of service to Upwardly Global, Sarah Olson is transitioning out of her role as New York Program Director and into a new role as our national Director of Knowledge Management. In her new role, Sarah will help codify the organization’s efforts around data-informed decision making, institutionalize best practices, and help position Upwardly Global as a thought leader in the workforce space.
Our incoming New York Program Director is Stephanie Alman. Stephanie brings extensive cross-sector experience to Upwardly Global, most recently working at WeWork, where she led the company’s efforts around creating career pathways for refugee professionals—and was involved with the hire of several Upwardly Global job seekers.
Congratulations to Sarah and welcome to Stephanie! Access our staff directory here.
Communications Updates
Upwardly Global is working to contribute positive narratives and to inform the broader public about immigrant contributions to the U.S. Please share these recent stories with your networks:
Our President & CEO, Jina Krause-Vilmar, spoke about how immigrant and refugee professionals are a “talent motherlode” in The Workplace podcast from our friends at O.C. Tanner.
Upwardly Global employer partner O.C. Tanner’s Mindi Cox penned an op-ed in the Salt Lake City Tribune, making the business case for including refugees in the U.S. workforce.
