New immigration estimates help make sense of the pace of employment | Brookings (2024)

FAQs

How does immigration affect employment? ›

An often overlooked fact: “Immigrants are not simply workers but consumers.” By increasing the demand for goods and services, immigrants “can lead to more investment, resulting in greater demand for labor and thus increased wages and employment in the economy.” Immigrants may also increase the demand for labor by ...

The available evidence suggests that immigration leads to more innovation, a better educated workforce, greater occupational specialization, better matching of skills with jobs, and higher overall economic productivity. Immigration also has a net positive effect on combined federal, state, and local budgets.

They struggle to find jobs, face significant language barriers and lack transportation or skills to get them the jobs they need, according to interviews with migrants and their advocates. This occurs even when many companies say they are seeking to fill vacancies in a state with low unemployment.

Home / Population and society / Articles / How many immigrants are in the American workforce? Immigrants make up nearly 20% of the US workforce — just over 30 out of 168 million — and participate in the labor force at a higher rate than native-born workers, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Many economists suggest that immigrants benefit the U.S. economy in several ways. They take generally undesirable, low-paying but essential jobs that most U.S.-born Americans won't, like caring for children, the sick and the elderly.

Immigrants are substantially overrepresented among workers who are paid the least and are most in need of training to improve their skills and earnings. Nearly half (48 percent) of all immigrant workers earned less than 200 percent of the minimum wage, compared with 32 percent of native workers.

Because of these barriers, immigrants face many challenges, such as retraining, paying high fees for courses or tests, limited course options due to a language barrier, and lacking knowledge of US job application processes. These challenges often prevent immigrants from working high-skilled jobs in the workplace.

Why are we in a worker shortage? At the height of the pandemic, more than 120,000 businesses temporarily closed, and more than 30 million U.S. workers were unemployed. Since then, job openings have steadily increased while unemployment has slowly declined. In 2023, employers ended up adding 3.1 million jobs.

Which U.S. states and cities have the largest numbers of immigrants? The U.S. states with the most immigrants in 2022 were California (10.4 million), Texas (5.2 million), Florida (4.8 million), New York (4.5 million), and New Jersey (2.2 million).

If you're thinking of relocating this year, consider New Hampshire, Wyoming, Virginia, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, which lead the most recent list of the best states to move to, according to immigration law experts Shoreline Immigration.

What group of immigrants are most successful in the US? ›

For example, in the United States, Nigerian-Americans are among the most successful immigrant groups, topping the charts in a wide array of fields.

Unemployment Insurance Information

To collect Unemployment Insurance benefits, you must: Have a Social Security Number. Show that you were in satisfactory immigration status and authorized to work in the United States when earning the wages you used to establish your claim.

➢ On average, recent immigrants comprise 3.1 percent of the population in counties with the highest unemployment rates (over 13.4 percent). But recent immigrants account for a higher share of the population (4.6 percent) in counties with the lowest unemployment rates (below 4.8 percent).

Migrants are at heightened risk of exploitation and abuse in the workplace due to deceptive recruitment practices, both by employers and intermediaries; frequent lack of social support systems; unfamiliarity with the local culture, language, their rights at work and national labour and migration laws; limited or denied ...

Immigrants made up 18.1% of the overall labor force in 2022, a sizable share that has increased in recent years and continues to increase. Because immigrants are more likely to be working age, they help fill gaps in the workforce, particularly in certain critical industries.