The Center for Immigration Studies last month released a study showing that in the fourth quarter of 2023, there were 2.7 million more people working in America than in the pre-Covid fourth quarter of 2019. The increase consisted entirely of immigrants, both legal and illegal. In fact, more than 2.9 million more immigrants were working than four years earlier. The total number of workers was brought down by a decrease of 183,000 in native-born workers.
The category of less-educated US-born men was hardest hit. The share of US-born men between the ages of 18 and 64 without college degrees who were working or looking for work has not returned to pre-Covid levels. That decline did not begin with Covid; it has been ongoing for decades.
Steven Camarota, the report’s coauthor, declared:
We keep hearing how the job market is booming, yet the number of U.S.-born Americans working has still not returned to the 2019 pre-Covid level. Moreover, labor force participation among non-college educated U.S.-born men has not even returned to the 2019 level, which itself was very low by historical standards.
For more, see CIS.org.