The Department of Labor has released a report detailing the increasing importance of the foreign workers to the US economy. As the economy has changed over recent decades, noncitizens have become a vital segment of the workforce, in all areas. While in 1960, about one in every 17 US workers was foreign born, today, nearly one in every eight is. From 1996 to 2000, increases in the foreign born workforce were responsible for half of the overall increase in the available labor force. In addition to substantially greater numbers of immigrant workers, there have also been substantial shifts in their countries of origin. Until 1965, when racial quotas were finally eliminated from US immigration laws, most immigrants came from European countries. Now, however, immigrants from Latin American countries account for 50 percent of all immigration to the US.
The report shows that overall, the foreign-born are less likely than natives to participate in the labor force. This is primarily because foreign-born women are less likely than native women to seek work. This, in turn, is because of family structures among the foreign-born. They are five times as likely to be married and more than twice as likely to have children than native-born residents, and married or having children tends to reduce women’s likelihood of being in the labor force. Foreign-born men, on the other hand, are more likely to participate in the labor force than native men.
Education, of course, plays an important part in the workforce. Nearly 60 percent of foreign-born residents without a high school diploma participate in the labor force, compared to about 37 percent among the native-born. At other educational levels (high school graduate, some college but no degree, college graduate) participation rates among the foreign and native-born are nearly the same. Immigrants are more likely to work in service occupations, nearly 19 percent as opposed to 13 percent, while natives are more likely to work in executive and professional positions, about 31 percent compared to about 25 percent. Educational history and language barriers are listed as the most likely reasons for the differences in participation in different types of jobs.
The differences in occupations are reflected in the dramatic difference between earnings among the foreign and native-born. Foreign-born workers earned about 75 cents for every dollar earned by the native born in 2000. Interestingly, the gap is smaller among women, 81 cents on the dollar, than among men, 70 cents on the dollar.
The report notes the importance of foreign-born workers to the economic boom of the 1990s. They constituted nearly 50 percent of the increase in the size of the labor force, and represent even larger proportions among workers under 45. Despite this, foreign-born workers tended to concentrate in the same areas. In 2000, 60 percent of the foreign-born workforce was found in just four states – California, Florida, New York and Texas.
Foreign-born workers do not appear to have been hit as hard by the economic downturn that began in March 2001 as native-born workers. In the 12 months between March 2001 and March 2002, the number of foreign-born people employed increased by 491,000, while the number of native-born people employed decreased by 897,000. This is, in large part, due to the fact that foreign-born workers tend to be employed in the service sector, which has continued to grow, while the managerial and professional occupations dominated by native-born workers have taken the brunt of the downturn.
Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided as a public service and not intended to establish an attorney client relationship. Any reliance on information contained herein is taken at your own risk. The information provided in this article has not been updated since its original posting and you should not rely on it until you consult counsel to determine if the content is still valid. We keep older articles online because it helps in the understanding of the development of immigration law.