Since the Labor Department started keeping track of the data in 1996, the number of foreign people possessing jobs in America has increased, while native-born Americans’ employment is falling, a trend that has been going on under President Biden.
According to statistics reported in the Wall Street Journal, the number of foreign-born employees holding employment in the United States reached a peak of more than 18% in 2022, the highest level in over 30 years.
Over 1.3 million native-born Americans entered the workforce last year, while 1.8 million more foreign-born individuals had employment or were seeking for work.
An economist told the Journal that “immigrants are a “buoy” for the labor force and are responsible for any actual improvements that have occurred,” said Elizabeth Crofoot, head economist at job market data company Lightcast.
The Biden administration has boosted the foreign-born workforce by 5% in only four years due to its primary focus on boosting total immigration to the U.S. via legal entry, unlawful entry, and foreign visa worker programs.
The proportion of native-born Americans in the labor force has decreased by 0.5% over the same time period. The unemployment rate for employees who were born abroad was also lower last year than it was for Americans, (3.4 percent vs. 3.7 percent).
A recent study from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) demonstrates that although a reduction in total immigration, both legal and illegal, increases earnings at a greater pace for non-college-educated Americans, mass unskilled immigration to the U.S. maintains wages sluggish for these Americans.Research by the CIS reveals:
“Real weekly wages for full-time, U.S.-born employees without a bachelor’s degree increased by 3.2% between the fourth quarters of 2016 and 2019. During this period, the overall immigrant population (legal and illegal) grew by an average of around 400,000 people each year, down from roughly 730,000 people per year from 2012 to 2016, when the incomes of those who were born in the United States but with less education actually decreased.”
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