Foreign investors may be behind your paycheck

Foreign-owned U.S. businesses employ 5.6 million American workers, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution. 

The report says more than a third of those jobs are in manufacturing, with an increasing share in the service sector, banking, high tech, and even pharmaceuticals. 

The foreign investment isn’t just clustered in a few big cities, says Devashree Saha, a Brookings senior policy analyst who wrote the report. Saha notes that in Raleigh, N.C., more than half of pharmaceutical jobs are in what’s known as the foreign direct investment sector. 

She says FDI in the U.S. fell by more than half from 1999 to 2012, because of competition from developing countries. But that competition is falling off.  

“There are very few opportunities and the US seems like the better of several not-so-great options,” says Moyara Ruehsen, who teaches international finance at the Monterey Institute.

Ruehsen says now, foreign investment is picking up again, because investors see the U.S. as a safe haven.