Many people who lost their jobs in recent years can tell you how hard it is to secure a new job. The unemployed, even with the now revoked extension in unemployment benefits, have been falling farther behind every year. Meanwhile, our immigrant population is doing quite well.
Government data show that since 2000 all of the net gain in the number of working-age (16 to 65) people holding a job has gone to immigrants (legal and illegal). This is remarkable given that native-born Americans accounted for two-thirds of the growth in the total working-age population. Though there has been some recovery from the Great Recession, there were still fewer working-age natives holding a job in the first quarter of 2014 than in 2000, while the number of immigrants with a job was 5.7 million above the 2000 level.
A Changed Labor Market
Comparing the number of immigrants working (ages 16 to 65) in the first quarter of 2000 to the number working in the first quarter of 2014 shows an increase of 5.7 million. In contrast, the number of working-age (16 to 65) natives holding a job was 127,000 fewer in the first quarter of 2000 than in the same quarter of 2014, even though the number of working-age natives overall increased by more than 16.8 million. This 16.8 million represented 66 percent of the overall growth in the working-age population. (See Figures 1 and 2 and Table 1). Since the number of working-age natives grew, but the number working did not, the share of working-age natives holding a job declined significantly.
Younger Americans Are Faring The Worst
Natives have lost jobs in some high-immigration occupations such as production, office and administrative support, construction, architecture and engineering, and transportation and moving. However, one of the key things that happened to natives is that young people, particularly the less educated, have not found jobs over the last 14 years. The population of natives 16 to 29 grew 16.2 percent from 2000 to 2014, but the number working actually declined by 2.6 percent. These new entrants to the labor market are not finding jobs and so the number and share not working has exploded. It is less the case that established older workers have lost jobs, though that has certainly happened as well. But proportionately it is younger native workers who have fared much worse over the last 14 years. What seems to be the case is that as new immigrants arrived, they filled what jobs became available and the employment rate of younger natives fell dramatically.
Here is the link to the full report:
Center for Immigration Studies -- All Employment Growth Since 2000 Went to Immigrants