Report: Foreign-born workers gained jobs while native-born lost them
Washington • Native-born Americans lost more than a million jobs while foreign-born workers gained hundreds of thousands of jobs as the country emerged from a painful recession, according to a new analysis of economic trends.
In April, May and June of this year, compared with the same period last year, foreign-born workers gained 656,000 jobs, while native-born workers lost 1.2 million jobs, according to a report issued Friday by the Pew Hispanic Center.
“There is a substantial difference in how the economic recovery is working out for the native-born and the foreign-born,” said Rakesh Kochhar, associate director of the center and co-author of the new report. He added that “only the immigrant experience has been a positive one. The native-born experience — the best that can be said is, ‘They bled less than in the last year.’ “
The report looks at a period where about 100,000 native-born workers were temporarily employed by the 2010 Census — meaning that the true effects of the recession were probably worse for native-born workers than the numbers suggest.
Based on a detailed analysis of Labor Department statistics, the report is sure to inflame the already charged national debate over immigration. It also adds fuel to a growing fire over the larger question of whether immigration is a fundamentally good thing or bad thing for the American economy.
“Our government has continued to bring in more foreign workers the entire time the economy was losing jobs,” said Roy Beck, president of Numbers USA, a group that seeks to reduce immigration.
As with the larger story of the effect of immigration on the economy, the data in the new report are complex. The report does not explain why foreign-born workers are doing so much better than native-born workers. It is possible, for example, that sectors of the economy that typically employ more foreign-born workers are rebounding faster than sectors that typically employ native-born workers.
Foreign-born workers also did significantly worse than native-born workers as the recession began, so it is possible they represent a warning system for other workers.
© 2010 The Salt Lake Tribune
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