Immigrant Workforce Reaches a New High

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The share of foreign-born workers in the U.S. labor force reached a record high last year, per new data from the Labor Department.

With more Americans aging out of the workforce than entering into it — and at a time of labor shortages — immigrants are playing an increasingly crucial role in the labor market. The share of foreign-born people in the workforce has been steadily rising for decades, but dipped during the pandemic — making last year’s uptick look a bit more striking than it is, said Abraham Mosisa, a senior economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Still, this is a trend that isn’t going anywhere. The U.S. labor force participation rate of native born men has been consistently decreasing, he pointed out. And the rate for women has stagnated. The number of foreign-born workers in the U.S. increased to 29.8 million in 2022, from 27.9 million the previous year — a jump of about 6%.

The number of native-born workers went from 133.2 million to 134.5 million — up barely 1%.

One key factor is that a bigger share of the immigrant population is of working age (18-64), at 77%, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute (MPI). That compares with about 59% of the native-born population.
The relative size of the immigrant population has stayed flat over the past two decades — comprising 13.6% of the total U.S. population in 2021, according to the most recently available data from MPI — just below where it was before the pandemic.

Foreign-born workers tend to take different jobs than the native-born (see the chart below), and they typically earn less money. In 2022, median weekly earnings for foreign-born full-time workers was $945, or 87% of their native-born counterparts.

Worth noting: Immigration opponents might see the record number of foreign-born workers and argue that foreign born workers are somehow stealing jobs from Americans — but that’s not what’s happening.

Although was a big increase in net immigration in 2022 — essentially catching up from the COVID slump — there were plenty of jobs to go around.

At times last year there were actually two jobs available for every job-seeker. And this year, the unemployment rate has continued to hover around a record low.