Who creates jobs? It’s a controversial subject, but a recent Economist article suggests that immigrants do. The article states, “few realise that foreign-born entrepreneurs create jobs for locals.”  The piece describes a new campaign that reveals the number of people US companies with at lease one immigrant boss have hired. It is Innovate for America, which has established a program that recognizes immigrants who innovate and create jobs. 

According to Innovate for America, “42% of Fortune 500 Companies were founded by an immigrant or their children. These 211 companies produced $5 trillion of revenue (the U.S. GDP is $16 trillion). In Silicon Valley, 44% of startups have an immigrant founder.” Google, Yahoo! and Intel are among the most well know of these companies. Innovate for America’s website states: “Companies featured on Innovate for America were founded by entrepreneurs born all over the world: India, South Africa, Guatemala, Israel, Iran, Mexico, Pakistan, Ukraine, Great Britain, and many others.”

So join the movement and get your foreign-born friends who have created enterprises in the United States to tell Innovate for America how many US based jobs their company has created.