Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Learning To Fill The Labor Niche: Filipino Nursing Graduates And The Risk Of The Migration Trap, Yasmin Y. Ortiga

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Overseas recruitment has become a common strategy in filling nurse shortages within U.S. health institutions, sparking the proliferation of nursing programs in the Philippines. Export-oriented education exacerbates a mismatch, however, between available jobs (in both the Philippines and the United States) and the number of nursing graduates, thus increasing joblessness and underemployment among Filipino youth. Pursing higher education as a means to migrate also puts Filipino students at risk of getting caught in a migration trap, where prospective migrants obtain credentials for overseas work yet cannot leave when labor demands or immigration policies change. Such problems highlight the complicated impact …