New Data Still Shows Most Job Growth Going to Immigrants; 88% since 2020, 72% in last year

 

The January 2025 household survey, released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is the first to be weighted by the government to better reflect the huge surge in illegal immigration in the past four years.1 The new data shows that since January 2020, right before Covid, 88 percent of all employment growth has gone to immigrants (legal and illegal), also referred to as the foreign-born. All this at a time when a near-record share of working-age U.S.-born men remain out of the labor force. As the Center for Immigration Studies has pointed out in the past, the failure to fully account for the surge in illegal immigration in prior surveys caused the total U.S. population to be underestimated. This had the counter-intuitive effect of reducing the reported employment of the U.S.-born, as well as the foreign born, in the data.

Key findings:Between January 2020, before Covid or the immigration surge, to January 2025, 88 percent (4.7 million) of the total increase in employment went to immigrants. (Table A-7, Employment Situation reports)
Employment of the U.S.-born is up just 645,000 since January 2020. (Table A-7)
Based on our prior analysis, illegal immigrants account for roughly 60 percent of the growth in overall immigrant employment.
Focusing on just the last year shows immigrant employment grew by 1.9 million, which was 72 percent of total employment growth. However, there is some undercount of employment in the January 2024 data. (Table A-7)
Not all the data has been released, but our preliminary analysis suggests that the share of working-age (16 to 64) U.S.-born men not in the labor force — neither working nor looking for work — is likely 22.1 percent in January 2025 and remains near a historic high for an economic expansion.2
The long-term increase in men not in the labor force is linked to profound social problems, such as crime and overdose deaths. Addressing this deterioration is challenging, but bringing in so many legal and illegal immigrants reduces job prospects for American men. Equally important, relying on immigration to fill jobs allows employers and policymakers to ignore this enormous problem.3

1 The Census Bureau, which collects the data for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has struggled to estimate migration for years, even issuing a revision to estimated net migration for an entire decade in 2022. It also dramatically revised its estimates of migration for 2023 when it released its 2024 estimates, which showed unprecedented net migration of 2.29 in 2023 and 2.79 million for 2024. Estimating net migration accurately is critically important because the population estimates are the basis for the weights used in the household survey, which is technically known as the Current Population Survey.


2 Table A-6 is the only table in the Employment Situation report released today that shows labor force participation for the working-age (16 to 64), though the primary focus of the table is disability. Unfortunately, Table A-6 reports information about the total U.S. population, not immigrants and the U.S.-born separately. (Table A-7 breaks out the two groups separately but does not show labor force participation for the working-age.) The public-use data file for the household survey, technically known as the Current Population Survey (CPS), is typically released to the public about 10 days after the Employment Situation Report is released. The raw data allows researchers to analyze nearly every variable.

Analysis of the raw data in prior years shows the share of working-age U.S.-born men not in the labor force relative to the overall share of the male population not in the labor force each January has held roughly constant — 1.075 to 1. Table A-6 shows that 20.5 percent of all working-age men are not in the labor force in January 2025, which translates into 22.1 percent for U.S.-born men. The rate is likely now just slightly better than it was in January 2020 (22.4 percent), right before Covid. But as we have shown in prior publications, the share of U.S.-born men in the labor force pre-Covid represented a decades-long deterioration. In January 2007, before the Great Recession, 18.8 percent of U.S.-born men were not in the labor force, and it was 16.6 percent in January 2000. Back in 1960 it was about 11 percent.




3 When the Bureau of Labor Statistics refers to “labor force participation” it typically includes those 65 and older, which is not very helpful when looking at those who are working-age. Also, all figures in the household survey exclude those in jails and prisons.

https://cis.org/Camarota/New-January-Data-Still-Shows-Most-Job-Growth-Going-Immigrants-88-2020-72-last-year