National Data | September Jobs: Displacement Stalls — And Foreign-Born Workforce FALLS, At Rate Not Seen Since Great Recession.

By Edwin S. Rubenstein

10/10/2019

The big news in the September jobs data: The foreign-born workforce population in the U.S. has actually fallen — for the first time since 2017, when the late lamented “Trump Effect” was literally scaring immigrants away.

The foreign-born workforce population declined by 427,000 compared to September 2018. Not since the Great Recession have immigrant workers bailed in such numbers, year-over-year. Back then the outflux was driven by economic malaise. But now the economy is strong. What is driving this exodus?

Frankly, we’re puzzled. Of course, this decline could be statistical noise. But there’s been a very clear, if erratic, downward trend since March 2018. It caused us to write last month that the immigrant workforce “is falling so fast that it raises the possibility that the immigrant workforce may be about to shrink, as it did briefly and gloriously in the early months of the Trump Administration when the 'Trump Effect' was working.” We were right.

The falling foreign-born workforce may also reflect renewed fear of apprehension and deportation — and, perhaps, an Administration that finally seems to be getting a grip on the influx at the southern border. Mexico, at the not-so-subtle urging of President Trump, has deployed thousands of troops along its border with Guatemala and taken other steps, with significant results. Official data for September has not yet been released but apprehensions on the southern border (a proxy for crossings) are reported to have been some 52,000, down from a peak of 144,000 in May: Apprehensions At The U.S.-Mexico Border Decline For The 4th Consecutive Month, by Richard Gonzales, NPR, October 8, 2019.

Additionally, of course, the Trump Administration has sharply reduced the “refugee” intake, from Obama’s peak of 85,000 to a proposed 18,000 for fiscal 2020.

And it’s possible that Trump’s executive actions are taking a toll: His Muslim ban (upheld by the Supreme Court), his revised public charge rules, even more thorough adjudication by USCIS. (Vox claims that this more thorough adjudication has resulted in an “almost doubling average wait times for those applying for green cards, employment visas, citizenship, and other benefits” — and that’s before a new rule requiring immigrants to buy health insurance has taken effect: Trump just quietly cut legal immigration by up to 65%, by Nicole Narea, October 9, 2019. Link in original).

But one thing that hasn’t happened is legislation. The Trump Administration seems even to have dropped its early support for the RAISE Act — its much-touted if vague Kushner plan does not reduce legal immigration at all. Which means that all these gains can be reversed by President Warren Going The Full Merkel to knock out the Historic American Nation.

The rest of the story: The BLS reported 130,000 new payroll jobs were created in September. This is not surprising. The recovery is now ten years old. After a week of disappointing economic news, we were prepped for implosion. Instead we got a wilt. Last year the economy created an average 223,000 jobs a month through September; this year the monthly average is 161,000.

We are told there are simply not enough job seekers to fill unfilled job positions. This explanation does not jibe with the data on the number of native-born persons or, for that matter, immigrants who are either unemployed or not in the labor force. (See table below.)

Meanwhile, the “other” employment survey, the Household Survey, was far more encouraging. It reported a robust 391,000 new jobs created in September. The September unemployment rate for Hispanics fell to 3.9%, the lowest on record, 0.6 percentage points below the year-ago level. The unemployment rate for workers without a high school degree also fell sharply to 4.8%, 0.8 percentage points below the year-ago level.

Wage growth was missing in action: a mere 0.1% for the month compared to 0.4% in August.

From VDARE.com’s immigration-focused viewpoint, one that is still almost unreflected in the MSM, there was somewhat disappointing news: Neither September nor August replicated the remarkable three-month stretch, May through July, during which native-born Americans gained jobs while immigrants lost them — a notable reversal of the long-run trend. Native-born American workers lost ground to their foreign-born competitors throughout the Obama years. This accelerated significantly in the months leading up to the 2016 election.

But even here, note that immigrant displacement of American workers has not yet resumed.

In September 2019:

• Immigrants gained 73,000 jobs, a gain of 0.27%
• Native-born Americans gained 318,000 jobs, a gain of 0.24%
• The VDARE.com immigrant employment index, set at 100.0 in January 2009, rose to 126.4 from 126.0 in August
• The Native-born American employment index rose to 108.6 from 108.3 in August
• The New VDARE American Worker Displacement Index (NVDAWDI), our name for the ratio of immigrant to native-born employment growth indexes since Jan. 2009, was unchanged at 116.4.

Overall, from January 2017 through September 2019, Trump has presided over a labor market in which immigrants gained 1.367 million jobs, a 5.3% increase, while native-born Americans gained 4.819 million, a rise of 3.8%.

Despite the two-month stall in New VDARE American Worker Displacement Index (NVDAWDI)’s decline, the percentage gap in job creation under Trump — 1.5 percentage points in favor of immigrants — is still strikingly low. As recently as April of this year it was 7.1%; immigrants gained 2.3 million jobs, an 8.9% rise, while native-born Americans gained 2.264 million, a rise of 1.8%.

More than half-way through his third year President Trump is now back to American Worker Displacement levels last seen in the summer of his first year in office. Not good enough, but something. Our tag line, “As far as job growth is concerned, ‘America First’ has not translated into Americans First,” is still valid; but there are still some signs of its demise.

Another way of looking at American worker displacement: The immigrant share of total U.S. employment. It’s been falling.

Immigrants held 17.28% of jobs in September, unchanged from August, but down from the 17.59% share of September 2018. These percentages are based on employment figures that are not seasonally adjusted, so year-over-year comparisons may be more representative of the long-term trend. The record immigrant job share (18.08%) was recorded in April 2018.

Data in the September BLS report show that on three important metrics — working-age population, employment, and labor force participation rate — native-born American workers outpaced immigrants by a considerable multiple over the past 12 months.

Over the past 12 months (September 2018 through September 2019):

• The native-born working-age population grew by 1.775 million, a gain of 0.82%; the corresponding immigrant population fell by 427,000 — a 0.99% loss. THE “TRUMP EFFECT” IS BACK! NOT SINCE THE GREAT RECESSION HAS THE IMMIGRANT ADULT POPULATION DECLINED AS MUCH, YEAR-OVER-YEAR.
• Immigrant employment declined by 79,000, or 0.3%; native-born American employment rose a whopping 2.266 million, a 1.8% gain. ANOTHER REMARKABLE COMEBACK FOR NATIVE-BORN WORKERS AFTER A DISMAL JUNE DURING WHICH IMMIGRANTS GAINED JOBS NEARLY THREE TIMES FASTER, YEAR-OVER-YEAR.
• The immigrant labor force (working or looking for work) fell by 194,000, a 0.7% decline; the native-born American labor force roared ahead by 2.18 million, a 1.63% gain. ADVANTAGE NATIVE-BORN
• The unemployment rate for immigrants fell to 2.6%, a decline of 13.3% from last September, while the native-born American unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, a decline of only 5.4%. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS — THOUGH THIS POSITIVE IS DUE ENTIRELY TO THE FALL IN THE IMMIGRANT LABOR FORCE. BY CONTRAST, THE NATIVE-BORN UNEMPLOYMENT RATE FELL DESPITE THE LARGE RISE IN THE NATIVE LABOR FORCE
• The labor-force participation rate for native-born Americans rose by 0.8%, versus a 0.3% rise for immigrants. ANOTHER SIGNAL OF INCREASED CONFIDENCE ON THE PART OF NATIVE-BORN WORKERS NOW THAT TRUMP’S TARIFFS AND CRACKDOWNS ON UNAUTHORIZED FOREIGN-WORKERS ARE INCREASING JOB OPPORTUNITIES.

September BLS data show 4.7 million native-born adults are unemployed and another 81 million are not in the labor force. Companies are offering flexible working hours with work at home options to stay at home parents, full-time students, workers, and recent retirees. They are hiring people with disabilities, dropping education requirements, and waiving background checks.

But still many employers, and their lobbyists, insist that immigrants are needed to fill the gap.

Bottom line: This is a formidably strong economy and it has been swamping the effects of immigration. The last few months have been especially good for native-born Americans.

But incredibly, more than three years after Trump’s great victory, GOP Senators are still on the donor-driven immigration bandwagon. These turkeys are voting for Thanksgiving: Current immigration-driven demographic drift is suicidal for the GOP.

Edwin S. Rubenstein (email him) is President of ESR Research Economic Consultants.

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