Greater Miami Depends on Immigrants for All Levels of Its Economy

Immigrants Make Up 40 Percent of the Region's High-Skill Knowledge and Creative Workers and Half of its Hospitality, Tourism and Service Economy

News provided by

Creative Class Group

Mar 22, 2017, 08:00 ET

MIAMI, March 22, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- With the highest share of immigrants or foreign-born residents in the U.S. (4 in 10 residents) Greater Miami—the Miami metropolitan area, which spans Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties—depends heavily on global talent to fuel its economy, according to a new analysis by Florida International University and the Creative Class Group.

Authored by Richard Florida and Steven Pedigo, this latest release, Miami Turns on Global Talent, of the FIU-Miami Creative City Initiative evaluates Miami's immigrant talent base – in comparison to all 382 metros in the U.S., with a special focus on how the region stacks up against the 53 large metros with more than one million people. The report examines both high-skilled talent, those with a college degree or who are part of the knowledge, professional and artistic workers who make up the Creative Class, and lower-skilled workers in food service, tourism, retail and hospitality who fuel the region's service economy.

"Immigrants are more important to the Greater Miami economy than New York or Los Angeles. The only other region that may depend more on immigrants is the Silicon Valley," Florida said. "Recent moves by the Trump Administration to restrict the flow of immigration and foreign-born talent pose a significant threat to the innovativeness and economic strength of the Greater Miami region."

Key takeaways from the report include:

Foreign-Born Residents. Greater Miami's share of foreign-born residents (38.9 percent) is three times the national average and higher than San Jose, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or New York.
College Graduates. Immigrants make up more than 40 percent (41.4 percent) of college graduates in the region, those with a bachelor's degree or higher level of education. Greater Miami is more dependent on immigrants for highly educated talent than Los Angeles (35.9 percent), San Francisco (32.4 percent) or New York (30.9 percent).
Associates Degrees. Immigrants make up 42 percent of adults with associate degrees in the region. This is more than in Los Angeles (31.8%), New York (30.7%), San Francisco (29.2%), or Washington, D.C. (23.5%).
Creative Class. Immigrants comprise four out of 10 (or 38.9 percent) of Greater Miami's Creative Class of knowledge, professional, scientific, and artistic workers. This is greater than Los Angeles (31.6 percent), San Francisco (29.8 percent) or New York (28.1 percent).
Blue-Collar Workers. Immigrants make up more than 60 percent of Greater Miami's blue-collar workers – who work in factories, construction and transportation jobs. This is similar to Los Angeles (60.9 percent) but more than New York (50 percent) or San Francisco (48.2 percent).
Service Workers. Immigrants make up nearly half (47.2 percent) of Greater Miami's service workers, those working in hospitality, tourism, food preparation and service, retail trade, and personal care industries. This is the highest share of any large metro in the country.

About Creative Class Group: The Creative Class Group is an advisory services firm composed of leading next-generation researchers, academics, and business strategists. Utilizing its unique approach and metrics, CCG works with companies and governments worldwide. CCG Founder, Richard Florida is the Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at The University of Toronto's, Rotman School of Management, and a Distinguished Fellow at New York University's Schack Institute of Real Estate. He is Senior Editor at The Atlantic where he cofounded and serves as Editor-at-Large for City Lab and is a Visiting Fellow of the FIU-Miami Creative City Initiative. Rana Florida, CEO of CCG who writes on business and entrepreneurship for Fast Company and the Huffington Post, serves as Director of the FIU-Miami Creative City Initiative. Steven Pedigo, Director of Research at CCG is a Visiting Fellow. Reham Alexander is CCG'S Director of Operations and Events and runs the events programming for the FIU-Miami Creative City Initiative. For more information about CCG, visit: www.creativeclass.com.

About FIU: Florida International University is classified by Carnegie as a R1: Doctoral Universities - Highest Research Activity and recognized as a Carnegie engaged university. It is a public research university with colleges and schools that offers 196 bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in fields such as engineering, computer science, international relations, architecture, law, and medicine. As one of South Florida's anchor institutions, FIU contributes almost $9 billion each year to the local economy. FIU is Worlds Ahead in finding solutions to the most challenging problems of our time. FIU emphasizes research as a major component of its mission. FIU has awarded more than 220,000 degrees and enrolls more than 54,000 students in two campuses and three centers including FIU Downtown on Brickell, FIU@I-75, and the Miami Beach Urban Studios. FIU's Medina Aquarius Program houses the Aquarius Reef Base, a unique underwater research facility in the Florida Keys. FIU also supports artistic and cultural engagement through its three museums: Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, the Wolfsonian-FIU, and the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. FIU is a member of Conference USA with more than 400 student-athletes participating in 18 sports. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu/.

About the FIU-Miami Creative City Initiative: A collaboration between Florida International University and the Creative Class Group, the FIU-Miami Creative City Initiative engages political, business, and cultural leaders, faculty, students, alumni, and the greater community in a dialogue on how creativity, culture, design, and innovation can drive the greater Miami regional economy.

SOURCE Creative Class Group