New research suggests that the Bush administration is right to dismiss critics who talk about this being a jobless economic recovery. It turns out that thousands of new jobs really are being created. They're just not going to Americans.
The number of immigrants holding jobs has grown by more than 2 million during the past four years, according to a study of Census Bureau data by the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based group that favors more restrictive immigration policy. The center found 19.7 million immigrants with jobs, with about half the growth since 2000 due to employment of illegal workers. During the same period, the number of native-born workers decreased by 482,000 to 115.3 million.
The CIS analysis mirrored results of a Pew Hispanic Center study this year that found 28.5 percent of new jobs going to immigrants, even though noncitizens make up less than 9 percent of the overall work force. Lack of training or education is no impediment. A weak labor market during the past four years, with plenty of low-skilled, low-paying positions, has attracted 1.1 million immigrant workers who have no more than a high school degree.
Apparently, employers struggling to survive soft economic times have grown more willing to hire illegal immigrants who accept low wages and poor benefits, if any. Immigrants also are willing to travel farther to find work, often taking the most physically demanding and sometimes dangerous jobs. Businesses under pressure find it expedient to take one job with a living wage and health insurance and turn it into two jobs that offer minimum wage and nothing else.
Steven Camarota, author of the CIS report, says the trend is eliminating many jobs that natives want, not just filling jobs they don't want. "While it would be an oversimplification to assume that each job taken by an immigrant is a job lost by a native," he said, "it is clear immigration has remained at record levels and at the same time employment among the native-born has declined." What the White House calls job creation is a labor market rearranging itself, with an expanding low end and a stagnant top.
Demographic changes may be distorting some of the recent findings. According to the census, the number of U.S.-born workers showed almost no growth over the past four years, making it inevitable that immigrants would increase their share of the jobs market. Immigration reform will improve the quality of jobs for the people who need them most. A sensible guest worker program — such as the AgJOBS Act that has strong bipartisan support in the Senate — would provide a legal framework for foreign workers and bring wage guarantees to boost U.S. workers' paychecks.
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