Study: 18 million new immigrants since 2000, but only 9.3 million new jobs

A new study from the Center for Immigration Studies found that more than 18 million new immigrants have entered the United States either legally or illegally since 2000, while only 9.3 million jobs were added over the same period of time. That represents two new immigrants for ever job created in the past 14 years.

The study found that the amount of U.S. born workers (ages 16 to 65) grew by 16.5 million since 2000 in addition to the 18 million new foreign citizens.

The widest ratio of immigrants entering the country to jobs created is during the period of time “after the Great Recession began”. According to the study, “7.8 million new immigrants arrived from 2008 to 2014, yet net job growth was just two million” over the same time period. That’s almost four immigrants for every one job.

According to CIS Director of Research and author of the study, Steven Camarota:

The key question for policymakers is whether it makes sense to allow in this number of legal immigrants and tolerate this level of illegal immigration when long-term job growth has not come close to matching these numbers. Moreover, this record immigration has occurred at a time when job growth has not even kept pace with natural population increase, let alone new immigration. Unfortunately, policy-makers have given little though to the adsorption capacity of the U.S. labor market when formulating immigration policy.

Here are the study’s findings:

• In December 2014 there were 18 million immigrants (legal and illegal) living in the country who had arrived since January 2000.2 But job growth over this period was just 9.3 million – half of new immigration.
• Between two-thirds and three-fourths of the new arrivals are estimated to be legal immigrants.4 Of the new arrivals 89 percent were potential workers 16 and older.
• In addition to the 18 million new immigrants, the native-born working-age population (ages 16 to 65) grew by 16.5 million since 2000; if we count natives over age 65, total native population growth was 25.2 million since 2000.
• Job growth has not come close to matching new immigration and natural population increase; as a result, the labor force participation rate (the share working or looking for work) of native-born Americans 16 to 65 shows a significant long-term decline.
• The share of native-born Americans 16 to 65 in the labor force was 77 percent in December 2000, 75 percent in December 2007, and 72 percent in December 2014.
• The number of working-age natives not in the labor force (neither working nor looking for work) increased by 13 million from December 2000 to December 2014.
• If we look at the period after the Great Recession began, 7.8 million new immigrants arrived from 2008 to 2014, yet net job growth was just two million from the beginning of 2008 to the end of 2014.
• If we look at the period before the Great Recession, from January 2000 to December 2007, 11.1 million immigrants arrived and job growth was still only 7.3 million.

You can view the full study at CIS.org.