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For Immediate Release
August 9, 2006

US Immigrants and the Labor Force: The Future, Past, and Present

The Contributions of High-Skilled Immigrants

The Impact of Immigration on Native Workers: A Fresh Look at the Evidence

U.S. to Need Immigrants at All Skill Levels in Next 25 Years,
"Competition Question" Still Unanswered

WASHINGTON -- Immigrants have been a driving force behind labor market growth in the United States in the past three decades. If immigration remains at current levels, immigrants and their children are projected to account for all growth in the U.S. labor force between 2010 and 2030.

This is according to a new study, Immigrants and Labor Force Trends: The Future, Past, and Present, by B. Lindsay Lowell, Julia Gelatt and Jeanne Batalova on the role immigrants could play in the U.S. labor force over the next 25 years. The study is one of three released by the Migration Policy Institute today examining immigrants' role in the U.S. workforce and impacts on native workers.

In The Contributions of High-Skilled Immigrants, Neeraj Kaushal and Michael Fix find that while immigrants are one in eight U.S. residents, they make up one in every five doctors in the country, one in five computer specialists, and one in six persons in engineering or science occupations. Immigrants are having profound impacts on science, medical, and technological fields.

Julie Murray, Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix, the authors of The Impact of Immigration on Native Workers: A Fresh Look at the Evidence, carefully review the extensive literature on how immigration affects U.S. wages and displacement of native workers. Their conclusion: despite the rhetoric of the current debate, the literature indicates that immigration does not have strong wage or employment effects on natives.
 
In Immigrants and Labor Force Trends, Lowell, Gelatt and Batalova, find that from 1970 to 2000, the native labor force in the United States grew by 38 percent, while the immigrant labor force grew by 218 percent. They note that while the number of immigrant workers has reached a historic high, immigrants' share of the workforce is roughly the same as it was at its peak in the late 19th century. 

Lowell, from Georgetown University, and Gelatt and Batalova, from MPI, find that immigrants' overall distribution in the workforce has remained stable as their share of the total workforce has grown. However, immigrants' share of some occupations has been more striking.  For instance, immigrants made up 4 percent of farm laborers in 1970 but 22 percent in 2000, and grew from 5 percent of non-farm laborers to 20 percent during the same period.  While in general immigrants showed roughly the same occupational distribution as natives, Mexican-born men, in particular, were disproportionately concentrated in construction and production jobs, making up half of these workers in 2000.

In the future, immigrants will represent a rising percent of the workforce at all skill levels.  The authors find that immigrants are projected to grow from 29 percent of those with less than a high school education in 2000 to 34 percent in 2030, from 10 to 15 percent of workers with a high school degree, and from 14 to 18 percent of those with a college education.

Immigrants are already well represented in growing industries, a trend expected to continue. Many jobs that have the highest rate of growth (in percentage terms) will require a college education, such as computer software engineers, physical therapists, and medical scientists.  Meanwhile many jobs with the largest absolute (numerical) growth will require only on-the-job training and will have three times as many openings, for instance in medicine, home care and other services.  Particularly as the native population ages, immigrants' education and skill levels make them good matches for these jobs.

In The Contributions of High-Skilled Immigrants, Neeraj Kaushal of Columbia University and Michael Fix of MPI find that high-skilled immigrants' influence on science and engineering, in particular, is pronounced.  The authors write, "In 2000, the foreign born constituted approximately 17 percent of the work force with a B.A. in science and engineering occupations, 29 percent of those with a master’s degree, and 39 percent of those with a doctoral degree." Since 1990, more than half the U.S. Nobel laureates in sciences were foreign born and about 37 percent were educated abroad.

Immigrants have also contributed to innovation in the United States by increasing the number of patents developed in the United States and driving expansion of new industries, including technology firms in California’s Silicon Valley.

However, global competition for students and high-skilled workers is on the rise. Kaushal and Fix note, "In 1989, American universities awarded twice the number of Ph.D.s as those granted by major Asian countries; twelve years later, the gap had become almost nonexistent.  The European Union granted 22 percent more Ph.D.s than American universities in 1989 and 51 percent more Ph.D.s than American universities in 2001." Increased competition from abroad could erode U.S. dominance in higher education, increase competition for the most talented students, and shrink the pool of high-skilled workers available for U.S. jobs.

In The Impact of Immigration on Native Workers, Murray, Batalova and Fix consider the "competition question" of immigration's effects for natives. Contrary to much rhetoric in the current debate, the authors conclude that the question of whether increased immigration decreases native workers’ wages has yet to be resolved. They find that recent research diverges sharply on whether immigrants lower U.S.-born workers' wages or, in fact, work in a complementary way to boost wages, particularly for high-skilled natives. 

Turning then to displacement, the authors write, "Researchers have more consistently found that there is some job displacement, or at least growing exclusion, of native workers in industries or areas with many immigrants."  This trend holds for low-skilled workers and/or African-American natives.  The authors note that changes in labor or capital, such as native out-migration or the entry of new industries into a region, can lessen the impacts of immigration on native wages or employment or spread the effects through a larger market.

The studies were prepared for the Independent Task Force on Immigration and America's Future, a bipartisan panel of prominent leaders from key sectors concerned with immigration convened by MPI to generate sound information and workable policy ideas. All three publications, as well as research prepared for the Task Force on the unauthorized population, border and worksite enforcement, and temporary worker programs, can be accessed at: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/ITFIAF/publications.php.    

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The Independent Task Force on Immigration and America's Future is co-chaired by former Senator Spencer Abraham (R-MI) and former Congressman Lee Hamilton (D-IN). MPI is partnering with Manhattan Institute and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in sponsoring this Task Force.

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The Independent Task Force on Immigration and America's Future is co-chaired by former Senator Spencer Abraham (R-MI) and former Congressman Lee Hamilton (D-IN). MPI is partnering with Manhattan Institute and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in sponsoring this Task Force.

For more information about the Task Force or to arrange an interview, please contact Colleen Coffey at 202-266-1910 or ccoffey@migrationpolicy.org.