Introduction to Upwardly Global
For 25 years, Upwardly Global (UpGlo) has worked to help immigrants, refugees, and asylees restart their professional careers in the U.S. We partner with employers, institutions, and immigrant professionals to remove barriers to workforce inclusion and create lasting systemic change.
Many work-authorized immigrants don’t know the soft skills valued in the American job market, and many employers can’t see past biases to a jobseeker’s talents and skills. About 50% of recently arrived immigrants have at least a bachelor’s degree, yet 1 in 4 are unable to get a job at their skill level. This leaves over 2 million work-authorized immigrant professionals unemployed or underemployed — and that’s what we’re working to change.
The culmination of our work as an organization is often a single moment — when one of our jobseekers gets hired to a skill-aligned job. This is a moment that shapes how immigrants build a life in their new country and community. It provides economic security, the pride of contributing their hard-earned skills, and the freedom to fully participate in family, civic, and community life. And we know that when immigrants contribute their talent and expertise to the right jobs, the results lift up the U.S. economy, strengthen communities, and radiate across generations.
Overview
Upwardly Global partnered with LinkedIn through its Outcomes Tracking Pilot Program to better understand the long-term career trajectories of immigrant professionals that have completed our training program over the past five years.
Through this pilot program, LinkedIn gathered aggregate employment data that enabled Upwardly Global to analyze placement trends across demographics, industries, and timeframes. We gained valuable insights into how our programs drive economic mobility and employment over time, quantifying the outcomes of our services, which include one-on-one coaching, learning resources, upskilling opportunities, and professional networking support.
This program marks a major breakthrough for the workforce development sector, which has historically faced challenges in tracking employment data due to reliance on self-reporting.
For 25 years, Upwardly Global has spent considerable resources tracking updates from our program alumni, knowing that those numbers likely do not represent the full picture. This pilot represents a significant advancement, using data partnerships and cost-efficient, scalable new technology to close longstanding information gaps.
With more than 8,400 matched records and a statistical margin below 4%, this pilot produced one of the most accurate data sets on immigrant professional employment outcomes to date. In addition to shining a light on the success of our programs so far, it provided Upwardly Global with a new, data-driven way to measure our impact, which creates ripple effects across industries, communities, and generations.
Goals
Measure employment outcomes and career progression of Upwardly Global jobseekers over time.
Assess skill alignment between immigrant jobseekers’ previous career experience and their new roles in the U.S.
Develop a data-driven model to estimate long-term impact and demonstrate the economic value of inclusion.
Key Findings
65% of jobseekers served by Upwardly Global find a job within 18 months of starting our coaching program.
The placement rate plateaus at 88% by year five, demonstrating long-term stability and persistence in the workforce.
The resulting employment curve allows us to accurately calculate our historical impact over any given period of time. Based on this model, we estimate that 35,000 UpGlo alumni have secured employment over the past 25 years.
This number triples our previous verified total — which was based solely on direct communication with alumni — of 12,242.
Among confirmed alumni placements:
- 70.3% are in managerial roles
- 4.8% are in leadership roles
74.7% of placements are clearly skill-aligned
22.2% of placements are likely skill-aligned
Next Steps
Upwardly Global will continue to pursue and strengthen partnerships with leaders in the field like LinkedIn to advance data-driven strategies for workforce inclusion. Future initiatives will focus on expanding the scope of tracked metrics to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the career outcomes supported by our programming.
As we look to the future, our goal is to continue using data to tell stories about the impact of our work and the incredible contributions being made by immigrant professionals in this country. We are committed to supplementing quantitative findings with human insight through ongoing surveys that capture salary growth, job satisfaction, and personal impact stories.
In addition, Upwardly Global will pursue relevant benchmark data to contextualize results within national and sectoral workforce trends, further demonstrating the economic and social value of inclusive hiring practices.
Conclusion
The results of this pilot validate Upwardly Global’s mission to help immigrants restart their careers in roles that match their education, training, and talent. The pilot also demonstrates that LinkedIn’s employment data can be a powerful, reliable source for tracking career outcomes for our jobseekers effectively and accurately.
The analysis that was possible through this collaboration proves the strength of our approach, especially our direct coaching program and the resources we use to support jobseekers. As we look to the next 25 years of advocacy and service, partnerships like this one with LinkedIn will allow us to streamline our research and keep closer tabs on the incredible strides our alumni are making in their chosen industries.
To ensure the continued progress of this critical work, we will seek to build and strengthen partnerships with leaders who see the value of investing in systems that drive workforce inclusion forward.
