Just over half of HR survey respondents say their organizations have sponsored an employment-based visa for at least one worker in the past five years. (Photo: Shutterstock)

The nation's employers and education systems can do a lot to lessen the growing worker skills gap by providing more of the right training, but even that's not enough in many circumstances—which is why more organizations are now also pulling talent from other countries, according to the Society for Human Resource Management's 2019 State of the Workplace report.

“Foreign workers are a critical complement to the domestic workforce, especially as the U.S. labor market faces an aging workforce and record low unemployment,” the authors write.

A majority of the human resources professionals responding to SHRM's immigration survey say that foreign-born talent has the right cross-cultural competencies needed for the job—and the workers positively affect the business productivity and the financial growth of their organizations. A majority also believe that such talent plays a positive role in driving U.S. innovation and economic growth.