Surge of migrant workers cutting off bottom of the career ladder for native-born Americans: expert
The recent influx of legal and illegal migrant workers is causing a dramatic shift in the U.S. jobs market, making it harder for low-skilled, native-born Americans to begin their careers.
"The influx of foreigners, that’s having a couple effects, one of which would be to keep native-born Americans out of the workforce," E.J. Antoni, a public finance economist and research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told FOX Business.
The comments come after a FOX Business report last week that highlighted the major uptick in the U.S. immigrant workforce, which has helped ease labor shortages but also contributed to higher jobless rates among native-born workers.
According to Antoni, that influx has also worked to put downward pressure on wages.
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"If you increase supply, you put downward pressure on price. What’s the price in the labor market? We just call that wages," Antoni said. "If you have this massive influx of low-skilled labor, which is what we’ve seen over the last several years because of our wide open southern border… the effect of that has been a massive importation of low-skilled labor, which has depressed wage growth."
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) figures show that the U.S. has gained a net of more than 9 million immigrants since the end of 2020, only 2.6 million of which are "lawful permanent residents," those known as green-card holders and other migrants who used legal channels to enter the United States.
But 6.5 million of the migrants entering the country are classified as "other foreign nationals," including those who crossed the border illegally and have since stayed in the country and claimed asylum. The CBO estimates that number will continue rising through the end of 2026, when roughly 8.7 million "other foreign nationals" will be present in the United States.
The FOX Business report also points to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, which estimates that close to 30 million foreign-born workers are currently employed in the United States, including those authorized to be in the country and those not. By comparison, roughly 131.1 million native-born workers are currently employed, meaning foreign workers account for close to a quarter of the current workforce.
Antoni has been paying attention to the trend, noting in a social media post last month that native-born Americans have lost 1.2 million jobs over the past year. Meanwhile, foreign-born employment has risen 1.3 million.
But things weren’t always this way, Antoni told FOX Business, noting that the amount of jobs for both foreign-born and native-born workers was growing prior to 2020.
"There were jobs available for everybody," Antoni said, adding that wage growth was also exceeding inflation during former President Trump’s time in office.
"Under the Trump administration, there was a very different influx of foreign labor," Antoni continued. "What you had during the Trump economy was more skilled labor."
With a more even disruption of foreign labor coming in across multiple skill levels, competition in the labor force increased throughout the entire market and did not only impact low-skilled workers looking to enter the job market.
"These are more productive workers. They’re adding more to GDP, they're adding more to our higher standard of living. That’s really what we want in an immigration system," Antoni said.
Making matters worse is inflation, Antoni argued, noting that the lower wages mixed with higher prices sends an ominous message to native-born workers.
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"By essentially keeping wage growth very, very low for low-skilled jobs, in a time of high inflation, when people are going to demand more and more money… you’re effectively telling a lot of young Americans it’s not worth it to start your career right now," Antoni said.
Reached for comment by Fox News Digital, a White House spokesperson argued that the "Biden-Harris Administration reversed the catastrophic job losses we inherited from Donald Trump, creating the strongest economy in the world and breaking the record for creating American jobs in a single term."
"What’s more, the radical MAGAnomics and Project 2025 agendas supported by Republican officials would kill American jobs and reverse surging investment in domestic manufacturing," the spokesperson added.