NATIONAL DATA: July Jobs — Displacement Sluggish Despite Border Catastrophe, Immigrant Workforce Growth. Calm Before Storm?

By Peter Brimelow

08/16/2021

[Research by Edwin S. Rubenstein]

The Biden Regime tried a different news management trick with July’s Border Patrol data: instead of holding it until a mid-month Friday afternoon, it leaked it unusually early, obviously hoping to dissipate the impact. That’s because the data was even more catastrophic than June’s:

Most of those apprehended are now released into the U.S., but increasing numbers are still evading the Border Patrol; perhaps they have criminal records and don’t want to risk detection [How Much Worse Can It Get? by Mark Krikorian, CIS.org, August 13, 2021].

Other trends are not as clear in this exceptionally weird labor market. But nothing good is happening

Significantly, the year-over-year increase in the immigrant working-age population accelerated in July:

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 739,000 in July 2021 compared to July 2020. The corresponding increases for May and June were 373,000 and 598,000, respectively.

This is in dramatic contrast to most of 2020. Then 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 the election results spurred a renewed invasion.

Employers added 943,000 jobs in July, with restaurants and bars leading the way. This was accompanied by a sharp drop in the unemployment rate to 5.4% from 5.9% in June. This is the lowest since the pandemic began.

One cloud loomed over the upbeat numbers: The data was collected in the first half of last month, before the Delta variant of the Coronavirus exploded in many parts of the country. Experts warn that a sustained outbreak could pose a threat to industries just regaining their footing.

The “other” employment survey, of households rather than business establishments, found still larger job growth in July — 1.043 million jobs created. And this month, native-born American workers did better than immigrants.

In July:

• Immigrants (legal and illegal) gained 111,000 jobs, a 0.43% increase from June.
• Native-born Americans gained 932,000 positions, a 0.74% gain from June.
• Thus VDARE.com’s immigrant employment index, set at 100.0 in January 2009, rose to 120.4 in July from 119.8 in June, a 0.43% increase
• VDARE.com’s Native-born American employment index rose to 105.0 from 104.2 in June, a rise of 0.74%.

This means that the New VDARE American Worker Displacement Index (NVDAWDI), our name for the ratio of immigrant to native-born American employment growth indexes since Jan. 2009, fell to 114.6 in July, a 0.31% drop from June.

American Worker Displacement, as measured by NVDAWDI, increased relentlessly during the Obama years. After wild gyrations during the Trump Administration, it finally fell, partly because of the pandemic and partly because of his Executive Actions. Then it surged into Biden’s inauguration since when it has essentially moved sideways. It is now slightly lower than it was when Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 2017. The Immigrant workforce population’s increase will presumably feed into this at some point, but it doesn’t seem to have done yet.

Another displacement metric — the immigrant share of total employment — is also moving sideways. Our analysis shows 17.07% of jobs last month were held by immigrants — below June’s 17.11% but above May’s 16.99%. In July 2020 immigrants held 16.57% of all jobs.

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 will presumably resume its Obama-Era upward march — unless the political climate changes again.

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 July 2020 to July 2021:

• The immigrant working age population rose by 739,000, a gain of 1.78%; the native-born population rose by 357,000 — a rise of 0.16% over that period. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS, AS THEIR POPULATION OF WORKING AGE GREW 11.0 TIMES FASTER THAN THAT OF NATIVE-BORN AMERICANS.
• The immigrant civilian labor force (working or looking for work) rose by 363,000, or 1.33%; the native-born labor force rose by 1.08 million, or 0.81%. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS — though the immigrant advantage vis-à-vis labor-force growth is far smaller than the population growth gap between the two groups. One major reason: Labor Force Participation Rates (LFPRs) have moved differently for these groups over the past 12-months — as detailed here:
• LFPRs fell from 65.0% to 64.7% for immigrants, and rose to 61.8% from 61.4% for native-born American workers. ADVANTAGE NATIVE-BORN Americans.

This result is exactly the opposite of what we would expect, given that, in most of the country, unemployment insurance and other social safety-net programs are more easily obtained by native-born than immigrants. Shortcomings in BLS participation rate data may explain this anomaly. The published data reflect LFPRs for all adults 16 years and older. Most early retirements have reportedly occurred among lower income workers [immigrants?] who were displaced by the pandemic and saw little chance of resuming their career. Among workers in their prime working years, which are defined as 25 to 54, LFPRs rose in July to 81.8% from 81.7%. Unfortunately, the prime working age data is not disaggregated by workers’ nativity [Jobs Surge in July Offers Fresh Sign of Economic Recovery, by Nelson D. Schwartz, NYT, August 6, 2021].

• Immigrant employment rose 2.27 million, a 9.5% gain; native-born workers gained 6.834 million jobs, a rise of 5.7% over this period. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS
• The unemployment rate for native-born Americans fell from 10.1% to 5.7%, a 43.7% reduction; the immigrant unemployment rate fell from 12.4% to 5.4% — a 56.5% reduction. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS, THOUGH UNEMPLOYMENT RATES FOR BOTH ARE STILL WELL ABOVE PRE-PANDEMIC LEVELS.
• 7.7 million native-born Americans, and 1.5 million immigrants, were unemployed in July; over the past 12 months the number of unemployed immigrants fell by 56%, while native-born jobless declined by 43%. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS

This is a strange, perhaps even unique, moment in U.S. labor market history. But looking at the border and Immigrant Workforce data — to say nothing of the “refugee” onslaught poised to begin soon — it can only be the calm before the storm.

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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