Of the 9.9 lakh doctors in the US, nearly 26.5%, or 2.6 lakh, are immigrants. More Indians have moved to the US to work as physicians than any other country. There are 59,000 Indian doctors in the US — one in five (or 22%) of all immigrant doctors are Indians.
In comparison, there are only 16,000 doctors who were born in China and Hong Kong (or 6% of the immigrant doctor population) who are currently practicing in the US. Pakistan rounds off the top three with 13,000 immigrant doctors (constituting 5% to the immigrant doctor population). New Jersey, Florida and New York were the top destination American states for immigrant doctors.
Remitly, a US-based company that provides digital financial/remittance services, recently released its “Immigrant Healthcare Index” based on its analysis of data of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and US Bureau of Labour Statistics.
The data shows that of the 34.1 lakh actively employed registered nurses, 5.4 lakh, or nearly 16%, are immigrants. A significant number — 1.4 lakh Filipino registered nurses — are currently working in the US, meaning that 26% of immigrant registered nurses were born in the Philippines. Indians (32,000, or 6%, of the immigrant registered nurse workforce) and Nigerians (24,000, or 5%, of the immigrant registered nurse workforce) ranked as the second and third most common immigrant nationalities in this profession. California, Nevada and New Jersey were the top destination American states for immigrant registered nurses.
Immigrants with a workforce of nearly 2.7 crore constituted 18% of total US healthcare workers. Indians with a total of 1.8 lakh healthcare workers comprised 7% of the total immigrant healthcare professional population. While India was a significant source country for doctors and registered nurses, it did not figure in the top five when it came to other occupations like nursing assistants, health aides, etc., resulting in an overall rank of three. Filipinos, with a workforce of 3.5 lakh (or 13% of the total immigrant healthcare professional population), occupied the top slot, followed by Mexico which, with a work force of 2.7 lakh workers, constituted 10% to the total immigrant healthcare professional population.