- WASHINGTON - The Center
for Immigration Studies has prepared a detailed employment breakdown for
immigrants and native-born Americans based on December 2008 data, the latest
publicly available. (The Department of Labor generally does not separate
out unemployment statistics for immigrants and the native-born.) Among
US-born blacks and Hispanics without a high school degree, unemployment
is 24.7 percent and 16.2 percent respectively - two to three times the
national rate.
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- Those native-born Americans most in competition with
immigrants, particularly illegal immigrants, are teenagers (16-17), all
adults (18+) without a high school diploma, and young workers (18 to 29)
with only a high diploma.
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- Unemployment rates for less-educated native-born Americans
(all races).
- Less than high school: 17 percent.
- Young with high school diploma only: 15 percent.
- Teenagers: 21.9 percent.
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- Unemployment for less-educated native-born blacks.
- Less than high school: 24.7 percent.
- Young with high school diploma only: 20.2 percent.
- Teenagers: 31.6 percent.
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- Unemployment for less-educated native-born Hispanics.
- Less than high school 16.2 percent.
- Young with high school diploma only: 13.6 percent.
- Teenagers: 40.3 percent.
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- An estimated 6 to 7 million illegal immigrants are currently
holding jobs. Prior research indicates they are overwhelmingly employed
in lower-skilled and lower-paying jobs.
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- It is difficult to find any evidence of a shortage of
less-educated workers. There are currently 12.8 million native-born high
school dropouts and young high school graduates either unemployed or not
in the labor force. (Persons not in the labor force are neither working
nor looking for work and are ages 18 to 65.)
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- If we count all adults with a high school diploma or
less, there are a total of 24.3 million less-educated native-born Americans
unemployed or not in the labor force, along with 6.9 million native-born
Americans 16 and 17.
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- Less-educated immigrants (legal and illegal) are faring
better, though their unemployment rates are also very high. Among immigrants
without a high diploma, unemployment is 10.6 percent, for young immigrants
with only a high school education it is 11 percent, and for immigrant teenagers,
10.8 percent.
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- Policy Discussion
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- The above figure paints a very grim picture for young
and less-educated native-born Americans. In some ways the situation is
actually worse than these numbers suggest: First, these bleak numbers are
from December 2008, and employment is expected to rise for most of 2009.
What's more, young and less-educated workers have had a very difficult
time in the labor market even before the current recession. In October
2007, before the start of the current downturn, unemployment among US-born
high school dropouts was 11.7 and for those with only a high school degree
ages 18-29 it was 10.5 percent. Moreover, in general, the share of such
workers holding a job has been declining for about three decades. Both
in the short term and the long term things have been very difficult to
less-educated Americans.
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- The difficulty that young workers are experiencing is
particularly worrisome because it is as young person that people learn
the skills necessary to function in the workplace, such as showing up on
time, following supervisors' instructions, and interacting with customers.
There is evidence that people who are poorly attached to the labor force
in their youth tend to stay that way throughout their lives.
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- Illegal Immigration. The latest data shows 22.1 million
immigrants holding jobs in the United States. (And immigrant is anyone,
legal or illegal, now living in the United States who was not a US citizen
at birth.) Of the 22.1 immigrants holding a job, prior research indicates
that about 7 million in the survey are in the country illegally, though
this may have declined since hitting a peak in 2007. Some number of illegal
workers, perhaps one million, are thought to be missed by the survey. The
overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants have a high school degree or
less. As a result, illegals are primarily employed in construction, building
cleaning and maintenance, food preparation, service and processing, transportation
and moving occupations, and agriculture. With the exception of agriculture
(which accounts for only a small share of illegal workers less than
one in five), the majority of workers in these occupational categories
are still native-born Americans. Most have a high school degree or less.<#1>1
If the United States chose to more vigorously enforce immigration laws
over the next year, and this resulted in 1 or 2 million illegal workers
deciding to leave, it could significantly improve the employment prospects
for less-educated natives. An economic downturn would seem to be the ideal
time to step up enforcement because such efforts would be buttressed by
the economic situation, and a recession is the time when Americans, especially
the poorest and least educated, are most in need of jobs.
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- Legal Immigration. At present, the United States has
not adjusted its immigration policy in any way in response to the recession.
One analysis found that in 2008, an average of 138,000 new foreign workers
were authorized each month. This includes new permanent residents (green
cards) and long-term temporary visas for guest workers and others who are
authorized to take a job. Although workers in the high-tech sector (using
H-1B visas) get a good deal of attention, a very large share of temporary
workers and green card holders have relatively little education. The "New
Immigrant Survey," for example, showed that one-third of adult immigrants
(new green card holders) had not completed high school. Given the deterioration
of the economy in the main immigrant-sending countries, the desire of foreign
workers to come to the United States is likely to be strong, despite the
US recession. Assuming no change in immigration policy, it is likely that
the number of work authorizations in 2009 will be similar to 2008. This
raises the serious question of whether such a high level of immigration
makes sense, given the current concern about joblessness.
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- Methodology
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- This report is based on the December 2008 Current Population
Survey (CPS). This is the latest public-use data available to researchers
outside the government. The survey is collected by the Census Bureau for
the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is the primary source of the nation's
unemployment rate, and other labor force-related statistics. It includes
about 131,000 individuals, roughly 67,000 of whom are in the labor force,
and excludes those in institutions such as prisons. Like all government
surveys, the data is weighted to reflect the actual size and demographic
makeup of the US population. The government publishes employment statistics
that are both seasonally adjusted and unadjusted from the survey. The figures
in this analysis are all seasonally unadjusted; unadjusted figures are
computationally simpler and easy for other researchers to replicate. In
general, seasonal adjustment makes only a small difference. For example,
in December 2008, the national unemployment rate was 6.8 percent when seasonally
adjusted, and 7.1 percent seasonally unadjusted. For sub-populations the
difference between seasonally adjusted and unadjusted can be larger.
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- 1 The Department of Homeland Security estimates a 10
percent undercount in Census Bureau data. See Table 2 in <http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois_ill_pe_2007.pdf>Estimates
of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States:
January 2007. For the number of illegal workers in the Current Population
Survey, see Table 21 in "<http://www.cis.org/immigrants_profile_2007>Immigrants
in the United States 2007: A Profile of America's Foreign-born Population.'
The report also estimates the education level of illegal immigrants (p.
31), with 81 percent having a high school education or less. For a distribution
of illegal immigrants across occupations, see Table 10 in "<http://www.cis.org/articles/2006/back206.html>Dropping
Out: Immigrant Entry and Native Exit from the Labor Market." The Pew
Hispanic Center has also estimated the educational level and occupational
distribution of illegals, with similar results; see <http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/61.pdf>The
Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the
U.S. and <http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/46.pdf>Unauthorized
Migrants: Numbers and Characteristics.
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- # # #
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- The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent
research organization that examines the impact of immigration on the United
States.
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