Trump’s Worst Failure?- April Jobs Show Record Immigrant Displacement Of American Workers

Funny thing, media commentary on employment almost never includes the immigration dimension...

Every month the Labor Department released two employment surveys: the Household Survey queries families directly, while the more widely cited Payroll Survey queries businesses. Total employment per the Household Survey is about 5 million more than found in the Payroll Survey, a gap that puzzles economists although we’ve long ago pointed out that it reflects employees, especially illegal immigrants, working “off the books.” Rarely has the divergence between the two surveys been as stark as it was in April, released on May 3. Essentially, immigrants (legal and illegal) captured ALL the new jobs.

Employers added 263,000 jobs last month, blowing past the 190,000 Payroll Survey gain analysts had expected. The unemployment rate was 3.6%, the lowest in half a century. Payrolls have now risen for 104 months in a row.

But, bizarrely, the Household Survey, which reports the nativity of workers, found a net job decline—of 103,000 in April. Our analysis indicates that native-born American workers suffered a job loss of more than half a million positions, while immigrants gained almost that much.

In April:

• Native-Born Americans lost 560,000 jobs, a 0.4% decline
• Immigrants gained 457,000 jobs, an increase of 1.6%
• Our immigrant employment index, set at 100.0 in January 2009, rose to 130.7 up from 128.6 in March.
• The Native-Born American employment index fell to 106.5 from 106.9 in March.
• The New VDARE American Worker Displacement Index (NVDAWDI), our name for the ratio of immigrant to native-born employment growth indexes, rose to 122.8 from 120.2 in March....