Washington, D.C. (February 7, 2025) - The January 2025 household survey, released today, is the first to be weighted by the government to better reflect the huge surge in illegal immigration in the past four years. The new data shows that since January 2020, right before Covid, 88 percent of all employment growth has gone to immigrants (legal and illegal), also referred to as the foreign born. As the Center for Immigration Studies has pointed out in the past, the failure to fully account for the surge in illegal immigration in prior surveys caused the total U.S. population to be underestimated. This had the counter-intuitive effect of reducing the reported employment of the U.S.-born, as well as the foreign born, in the data.
“The new data shows more employment growth for both immigrants and the U.S.-born than prior surveys, but it still indicates 88 percent of new jobs went to immigrants in recent years, at a time when a near record share of working-age U.S.-born men remain out of the labor force,” said Steven Camarota, the Center’s Director of Research.
Key Findings
- Between January 2020, before Covid or the immigration surge, to January 2025, 88 percent (4.7 million) of the total increase in employment went to immigrants. (Table A-7, Employment Situation reports)
- Employment of the U.S.-born is up just 645,000 since January 2020. (Table A-7)
- Based on our prior analysis, illegal immigrants account for roughly 60 percent of the growth in overall immigrant employment.
- Focusing on just the last year shows immigrant employment grew by 1.9 million, which was 72 percent of total employment growth. However, there is some undercount of employment in the January 2024 data. (Table A-7)
- Not all the data has been released, but our preliminary analysis suggests that the share of working-age (16 to 64) U.S.-born men not in the labor force — neither working nor looking for work — is likely 22.1 percent in January 2025 and remains near a historic high for an economic expansion.
- The long-term increase in men not in the labor force is linked to profound social problems, such as crime and overdose deaths. Addressing this deterioration is challenging, but bringing in so many legal and illegal immigrants reduces job prospects for American men. Equally important, relying on immigration to fill jobs allows employers and policymakers to ignore this enormous problem.
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