National Data | July Jobs — “Trump Effect” Back, American Worker Displacement, Immigrant Workforce Growth Both Stall

By Edwin S. Rubenstein

08/05/2017

• The first good news: the immigrant population of working age, while still increasing, is far below the estimated annual legal immigrant inflow.

There may be seasonal factors at work, so it is particularly heartening that July 2017’s 141,000 gain is a fraction of the 1.176 million gain reported for July 2016.

• More good news: the foreign-born share of total employment fell slightly in July, to 17.11%, from 17.22% in June.

MSM coverage focused on the fact that jobs are being created at rates that keep unemployment in the low 4 percent range. The difference between the 345,000 employment gain reported by the Household Survey and the 209,000 reported by the more widely-cited survey of employers, may well reflect illegals entering the labor force — employees that employers are loath to acknowledge when surveyed.

Average wage gains accelerated to 0.3% over May, according to the Employer Survey. As usual, the MSM views this strong uptick as a sign of an imminent labor shortage — requiring more immigration, of course.

50 million Americans not in the labor force and the Washington Post is worried about a "crippling" labor shortage? https://t.co/Gz0c2kHZU3

— Roy Beck (@Roy_H_Beck) August 4, 2017

Our take: a growing underground economy, manned mainly by illegals in Sanctuary Cities, is keeping wage gains lower than the official wage stat indicates.

That is great for Wall Street, great for employers, but bad for the average Trump voter. (If Jeff Sessions has his way, this will soon pass.)

Nevertheless, July was one of those rare months in which native-born Americans gained jobs, and immigrants lost jobs. In July:

• Total employment rose 345,000, up by 0.23%
• Native-born American employment rose 441,000, up by 0.35%
• Foreign-born immigrant employment fell 96,000, down 0.36%

During Trump’s first six months immigrant employment rose by 287,000 — an 1.11% increase, while native-born gained 1,145,000 jobs — an increase of 0.91%. So while we have not yet decisively reversed the long-term Obama-Era trend, the first six months of Trump has moved us much closer to that goal.

Native-born American workers lost ground to their foreign-born competitors throughout the Obama years, and this trend accelerated significantly in the months leading up to the election. This is brought out in our New VDARE.com American Worker Displacement Index (NVDAWDI) graphic:

Source: BLS Household Employment Survey; VDARE.com

Native-born American employment growth is represented by the black line, immigrant employment growth is in pink, and NVAWDI — the ratio of immigrant to native-born American job growth — is in yellow.

The index starts at 100.0 in January 2009 for both immigrants and native-born Americans, and tracks their employment growth since then.

From January 2009 through July 2017:

• Immigrant employment rose by 4.627 million, or by 21.4%. The immigrant employment index rose from 100.0 to 121.4.
• Native-born American employment rose by 6.665 million, up by 5.5%. The native-born American employment index rose from 100.0 to 105.5.
• NVDAWDI (the ratio of immigrant to native-born employment growth indexes) rose from 100.0 to 115.0. (100X (121.4/105.5))

In February 2009, Barack Obama’s first full month in office, 14.97% of all persons working in the U.S. were foreign-born. In his last full month, December 2016, 17.05% of workers were foreign-born. This implies that Obama-era immigration pushed as many as 3.16 million native-born Americans onto the unemployment rolls.

The immigrant share of employment in July (17.11%) was 0.06 percentage points above the share in December. This implies that resistance to Trump’s immigration agenda may have put as many as 9,200 native-born Americans out of work.

In contrast, by early April, the mere threat of a Trump immigration crackdown appeared, by our estimates, to have put 168,000 native-born American workers back to work. This was actually quite plausible, given the early hysteria about Trump in the MSM. Some immigrants, legal and illegal, may have decided to leave. Others, above all illegals, may have decided not to come after all.

A detailed snapshot of American worker displacement over the past year is available in the Employment Status of the Civilian Population by Nativity table published in the monthly BLS Report. [PDF]

Over the last 12 months (July 2016 to July 2017):

• The foreign-born labor force grew 2.5-times faster than the native-born American labor force: 1.49% versus 0.60%. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS.
• Immigrant employment rose 1.4-times faster than native-born employment: 1.75% versus 1.25%. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS.
• The labor-force participation rate (LPR), a sign of worker confidence, rose by 0.7 points for immigrants and was unchanged for native-born Americans. At 66.4%, the immigrant LPR in June was considerably above the native-born American rate (62.9%.) ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS
• The number of unemployed native-born Americans fell by 777,000 — down 10.9%; the number of unemployed immigrants fell 262,000 — down 1.9%. ADVANTAGE AMERICANS, although much of this “advantage” may be due to older natives retiring, or younger, discouraged, natives leaving the labor force from lack of suitable job opportunities.

Hopefully the RAISE legislation, introduced in August, will be that hope — both when it is enacted, and by sending a message immediately in the form of the Left’s deranged reaction.

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