Loaded with large backpacks from which their construction helmets hang, two men speak softly in Spanish in one of the cars of the A line of the New York subway. They go to Manhattan. A third takes advantage of the coming and going to sleep or perhaps simply close their eyes on the trip from Brooklyn. Nearby, two women in health center assistant uniforms comment on something they see on the phone; one with a Latin accent, the other Jamaican. It is 5:30 am on a work day in the spring of New York and that train is a small sample of a country that covers a high percentage of job offers with people arriving from outside its borders.
Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that in April immigrants represented 19.2% of the workforce. That’s a record and an increase of two percentage points from before the pandemic. But there may be more. “There are projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and other studies that suggest that the growth of the non-native labor force has been more intense than what the BLS data capture,” says Nancy Vanden Houten, chief economist for the United States. United States of Oxford Economics.
This economist has just published a study in which she assesses the economic impact of the proposals of the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, in the event that the limits on legal and illegal immigration are deepened. Trump has promised to deport 11 million people. “In that scenario, annual net immigration would be about 560,000 people a year, about half of the current 1.1 million,” she explains.
The impact in terms of employment would be very notable for entire job categories, especially in the coastal states—including Alaska—and Texas. If immigration were strongly restricted “labor would be lost in a wide range of activities, from computing and mathematics to building maintenance,” explains Vanden Houten. When tabulating the figures that the BLS has until 2022, the expert says that the representation of these workers in many sectors is truly surprising, in percentages that may be even higher than what the figures capture.
With the exception of personal assistance – care of the elderly, sick or disabled – and the agriculture, fishing and forestry sector, which have not fully recovered since the pandemic, the presence of non-native workers in other job categories is today higher to what there was before covid. In the case of computing and mathematics, 26.5% of the workers were not born in the country, the same as 24.4% of those who worked in life, physical and social sciences – such as biologists, seismologists, pathologists, geneticists, economists—or 23.9% of those who hold jobs in the health support sector.
In the food preparation and service sector, 23.2% of workers are foreigners, while 4 out of 10 employees in building and property maintenance are also foreigners. In construction and mining extraction, of every 10 workers, almost 3.5 of them are non-native. In the case of the two categories that two years ago were below 2019, one in five personal caregivers are from outside the United States, as are 36.6% of those who work in farms, fishing and forest maintenance.
Although just over half of these workers, 15 of the 28 million, have become naturalized citizens, according to the Census American Communities Report, the rest are workers with and without papers. “Industries that rely on these workers could be hit harder by crackdowns on illegal immigration,” says Vanden Houten. While others will suffer if new visa limits are imposed. Some jobs can be hired abroad, but others cannot and these limitations, if confirmed, will come when there is already a shortage of workers.
University of North Florida economics professor Medeline Zavodny explained in a study last year that layoffs in certain high-tech industries and concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence “do not reveal that the United States continues to need more workers in all training ranges. “International immigration is the only potential source of growth in the working-age population in the coming years.” Her calculations suggest that without a continued arrival of immigrants, the working-age population will decrease in the next two decades and by 2040 there will be six million fewer workers than in 2022.
Zavodny rejects criticism that migrants negatively affect the employment of natives and points to the experience of recent years, in which the employment of this group has also skyrocketed. “The percentage of native-born who are employed has surpassed the pre-pandemic rate and is at its highest level in 20 years,” he says. Furthermore, with an eye on legislation such as the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act to relocate high-tech industries in the country, Zavodny points out that in the medium term, American workers will not be enough “as investment projects are implemented.” infrastructure financed by the federal government and increases national production of semiconductors.”
According to the Oxford Economics study, half of the 10 occupations expected to see stronger employment growth in the future “rely disproportionately on foreign workers.” These are support in the health sector, computing and mathematics, life, physical and social sciences, personal services and care and transportation.
“I don’t want to get into the political realm, but restricting immigration doesn’t make sense when you need workers, a need that will be greater as the population ages,” says Vanden Houten. This economist admits that the immigration system needs fixes, but that the issue “has become very politicized and we lose sight of the benefits that the CBO and the Federal Reserve have pointed out” such as the potential for economic growth and lower inflation. . Zavodny goes further and maintains that a population decline will lead the economy to long-term stagnation “and even contraction.” In this crucial election year in the United States, the hegemonic discourses around two central issues, the economy and immigration, are on their way to crashing.
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