“One of the reasons that there has been an increase in foreign-born workers obtaining a job is because American men are sitting on the sidelines,” expert says.
Immigration to the United States—both legal and illegal—has soared over the past few years, and the influx of newcomers is altering the state of the national labor market.
Since late 2019, there has been a divergence between U.S.- and foreign-born employment levels, with the gap widening over the past year.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the number of employed foreign-born workers increased by 1.24 million from August 2023 to August 2024. By comparison, the number of employed U.S.-born workers fell by 1.32 million in the same time span.
When broken down by gender, American men have been casualties of the downward employment trend in native-born workers in recent years.
In the 12 months ending in August, the number of U.S.-born male workers fell by 1.15 million. The labor force participation rate also eased to 65.6 percent from 66.2 percent a year ago.
American women lost 165,000 jobs. While the participation rate increased by 0.1 percent to 57.9 percent, it has yet to recover to the prepandemic level of 58.3 percent.
Conversely, foreign male workers gained 695,000 positions, with the labor force participation rate edging up 0.1 percent to 78.7 percent. Foreign-born women obtained 546,000 jobs, bolstering their participation rate from 56.7 percent to 57.2 percent.
This has been a long-term trend, according to an August 2023 report from researchers at the Center for Immigration Studies.
The research shows that from 1960 to 2006, the number of U.S.- and foreign-born 16- to 64-year-old less-educated males in the labor force increased by 15.3 million. But only 52 percent of the increase was represented by American males, “while the rest went to immigrant men.”
“It is clear that demand for less-educated male workers has not kept pace with the total population of less-educated men, at least when immigrants are included,” the report stated. “The result has been a huge decline in the labor force participation rate for the U.S.-born.”
By Andrew Moran
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