Friday, December 19, 2014

CIS: Despite Recent Job Growth, Native Employment Still Below 2007 - "all of the net gain in employment since 2007 has gone to immigrants"


Despite Recent Job Growth, Native Employment Still Below 2007



President Obama recently announced plans to give legal status and work permits to millions of illegal immigrants. Many members of Congress and the president continue to support efforts to increase the level of immigration, such as Senate bill S.744 that passed that chamber last year. Yet data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on its website (see Table A-7) show that all of the net gain in employment since 2007 has gone to immigrants (legal and illegal), also referred to as the foreign-born.1 Native employment has still not returned to pre-recession levels, while immigrant employment already exceeds pre-recession levels. Furthermore, even with recent job growth, the number of natives not in the labor force (neither working nor looking for work) continues to increase.

Additional findings ...