The chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said at a conference Tuesday that to address the record high job vacancies, the U.S. should seek to double the nation’s number of legal immigrants.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s president and chief executive, Suzanne P. Clark, said Tuesday at the group’s State of American Business conference that the U.S. needs to grow jobs to address the current work shortage by adding to its legal immigrant workforce rather than transferring citizens between sectors and industries.

“We can’t simply move people from one industry to another, or from one skill-level to the next,” Clark said. “We have to grow our workforce if we want to grow our economy and stay competitive.”