NATIONAL DATA: October Jobs — Displacement Soars As Immigrants Take ALL New Jobs; Year-Over-Year Immigrant Workforce Growth Hits Another Biden-Era Record

By Peter Brimelow

11/18/2021

[Research by Edwin S. Rubenstein]

"America is getting back to work. Our economy is starting to work for more Americans," Joe Biden claimed after the October jobs data showed payrolls surging by 531,000 in October, their biggest jump since July [Biden says his plans are working after October jobs report beats expectations, by Kate Sullivan, CNN, November 5, 2021].

What he didn’t say (and probably didn’t know, given endemic Ruling Class ignorance of the immigration dimension): foreign-born workers — not “Americans” — garnered all the October job gains.

Although payrolls have grown every month so far in 2021, they are still more than 4 million short of pre-pandemic levels. And while the “other” employment survey, of households rather than businesses, also reported robust job growth — a total gain of 359,000 — our analysis indicates that immigrants (legal and illegal, the data does not distinguish) took all October’s employment increase:

In October:

• Immigrants (legal and illegal) gained 422,000 jobs, a 1.58% increase from September.
• Native-born Americans lost 63,000 positions, a 0.05% decline from September.
• Thus VDARE.com’s immigrant employment index, set at 100.0 in January 2009, rose to 125.5 from 123.6 in September, a 1.58% increase.
• VDARE’s Native-born employment index fell to 105.2 in October from 105.3 in September, a decline of 0.05%.

This means that the New VDARE American Worker Displacement Index (NVDAWDI), our name for the ratio of immigrant to native-born employment growth indexes since January 2009, rose to 119.3 in October from 117.4 the prior month, a 1.63% increase.

American Worker Displacement, as measured by NVDAWDI, was considerably higher in October (119.3) than it was when Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 2017 (114.8) After wild gyrations during his Administration, it finally fell, partly because of the pandemic and partly because of his Executive Actions. In the months immediately after Biden’s inauguration it stabilized, but with the waning of the pandemic, immigrant workers are coming back to work. October could be a harbinger of many grim months for native-born American workers.

A resumption of the relentless increases of the Obama years is highly likely — unless the political climate changes again. No sign of that yet. On the contrary, despite 1.224 million immigrants reported as unemployed in the October 2021 jobs report, the foreign-born working-age population expanded at a pandemic record 1.558 million, Year-over-Year, that month:

Note carefully what this chart shows. Unlike our other charts, which show absolute values, this one compares each month to the same month of the prior year. So the immigrant workforce population grew by 1.558 million in October 2021 compared to October 2020. The corresponding increases for August and September were 849,000 and 1.301 million, respectively.

For most of 2020, the population of working-age immigrants declined Y-O-Y. This far exceeded the net exodus during the 2008 Great Recession, and the brief net exodus during Trump’s first year, when his mere presence seems to have jawboned illegals into fleeing.

The immigrant Work Force population started growing again only in December 2020 — when Biden’s election spurred a renewed invasion. It is now starting to displace American workers.

Another displacement metric — the immigrant share of total employment — also rose to levels not seen since before the pandemic. Our analysis shows that 17.643% of jobs were held by immigrants in October. Not since March 2019 — when foreign-born workers accounted for 17.754% of total employment — has the immigrant share been above the level reached last month.

Note that, after some gyrations, the immigrant share of employment had been falling steadily even before the pandemic started. But, again, the Trump gains have been wiped out and the immigrant share is resuming its Obama-Era upward march

Each 1% rise in immigrant employment share represents a transfer of about 1.5 million jobs from native-born Americans to immigrants.

A more detailed picture of how native-born American workers have fared vis-à-vis immigrants is published in Table A-7 of the monthly BLS Report:

From October 2020 to October 2021:

• Immigrant employment rose by 2.476 million, a whopping 9.96% gain, while native-born employment rose by 2.057 positions, a 1.64% gain. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS.
• Native-born American and foreign-born working age populations moved in different directions over this period. The working age population of immigrants rose by 1.558 million, by far the largest absolute rise, Y-O-Y, during Biden’s time in office. In percentage terms, October’s year-over-year gain was 3.72%. In contrast, the native-born American working-age population fell by 576,000 — a 0.26% decline, Y-O-Y. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS.
• Immigrant and native-born labor forces (people working or looking for work) also moved in very different directions — rising 6.11% for immigrants, and falling by 0.62% for native-born. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS.
• The Labor Force Participation Rate [LPR] rose by 1.4% percentage points, or 2.18%, for immigrants, and fell 0.2% points, or 0.33%, for native-born Americans. While immigrant LPRs have historically been above those of native-born LPRs, the gap between them grew significantly over the past year, from 3.1% points in October 2020 to 4.7% points this October. The recent data offer more evidence that the expiration of expanded unemployment insurance benefits (in early September 2021) had zero, or little, impact on labor force participation. The end of extra generous job benefits was not the panacea for labor shortage woes that many business groups hoped it would be. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS.
• For most of the pandemic, unemployment rates were higher for immigrants than native-born Americans. There are many reasons for this, foremost among them: the low-wage jobs filled disproportionately by immigrants preclude remote employment. In October 2021, for the second straight month, immigrant and native-born American unemployment rates were identical. With the pandemic increasingly perceived as a diminished health threat, immigrants are coming back to work. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS.
• 5.67 million native-born, and 1.22 million immigrants, were unemployed in October 2021; over the past 12 months the number of unemployed immigrants fell by 40.4%, while native-born American jobless declined by 33.8%. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS.

A few days before the October jobs report was released, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said: "There is still ground to cover to reach maximum employment both in terms of employment and in terms of participation." He added that it was "within the realm of possibility" that the economy can achieve maximum employment by the second half of next year, as measured by a broad range of metrics [Inflation is at a 30-year high. Here’s how the Federal Reserve plans to deal with it, NPR, November 3, 2021].

Maximum employment for who? People just arrived? People born and raised here?

Those questions do not interest Powell. He is not an elected official. But so far in this election cycle, no prominent politician has addressed these questions either.

Peter Brimelow is the editor of VDARE.com. His best-selling book, Alien Nation: Common Sense About America’s Immigration Disaster, is now available in Kindle format.

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