The economy added a lackluster 217,000 jobs in May, about in line with what economists had expected. The unemployment rate remained at 6.3%.

Yet the MSM teased out a number of Happy Days Are Here Again factoids:

• Factoid #1: For the fourth month in a row, employers added more than 200,000 positions, the first time that has happened in more than 14 years. [217,000 Jobs Added, Nudging Payrolls to Levels Before the Crisis, By Nelson D. Schwartz, New York Times, June 6, 2014]

Reality check: As many as 90,000 of those jobs are needed just to absorb the new legal immigrants arriving each month. When you consider that 8 million native-born American workers were unemployed in May, and millions more have left the labor force entirely, 200,000 per month is, in fact, shockingly low.

• Factoid #2: Total employment, as measured by the Establishment Employment Survey, was a record 138.463 million in May, surpassing the peak reached before the economy collapsed in 2008. [Another Great Recession level fades as U.S. passes employment peak,, By Steve Goldstein, Marketwatch Capitol Report, June 6, 2014]

Reality check: Not since the Great Depression has it taken so long to recover all the jobs lost during a downturn.

But back then, immigration and native-born population growth was at a standstill. Stagnant population growth ameliorated the impact of stagnant job growth. By contrast, U.S. population has grown by about 12.5 million since 2008—most of it due to new immigrants and their U.S.-born children.

For perspective we analyze the “other” employment survey, of households rather than business establishments. The Household Employment Survey reports total U.S. employment at 145.814 million in May, or more than 7 million above the Establishment Survey’s total. As VDARE.com has uniquely pointed out, this discrepancy reflects, in part, the reluctance of employers to acknowledge the existence of illegal aliens on their payrolls.

Only 145,000 jobs were created in May, according to the Household Survey. The Household survey now breaks out the employment of immigrants, legal and illegal. Our analysis of the data finds that all of this May job gain accrued to immigrants:

In May:

• Total       employment rose by 145,000, or by 0.10%
• Native-born American employment fell by 39,000 or by 0.03%
• Foreign-born employment rose by 184,000, or by 0.78%

Thus May marked the resumption of native-born American worker displacement, a trend which had been in hiatus during the horrific winter of 2014.

The displacement of native-born American workers by immigrants has been a central fact of economic life during most of the Obama era. This is evident in our New VDARE.com American Worker Displacement Index (NVDAWDI) graphic:

Native-born American employment growth is the blue line, immigrant employment growth is in pink, and NVAWDI—the ratio of immigrant to native-born American job growth—is in yellow. The graphic starts at 100.0 for both native-born American and immigrant employment in January 2009, and tracks their growth since then.

From January 2009 to May 2014:

• Foreign-born employment rose by 2.235 million, or by 10.24%. The immigrant employment index rose from 100.0 to 109.1.
• Native-born American employment rose by 1.358 million or by 1.13%. The native-born American employment index rose from 100.0 to 101.1.
• NVDAWDI (the ratio of immigrant to native-born employment growth indexes) rose from 100.0 to 109.1 (100X(109.1/101.1)

A more detailed picture of American worker displacement over the past year, May 2013 to May 2014, is seen in Household Survey data published in the monthly job report:

Employment Status by Nativity, May 2013-May 2014(numbers in 1000s; not seasonally adjusted)
	May-13	May-14	Change	% Change
	Foreign born, 16 years and older
Civilian population	37,503	38,637	1,134	3.0%
Civilian labor force	24,958	25,392	434	1.7%
Participation rate (%)	66.5%	65.7%	-0.8%	-1.2%
Employed	23,384	23,977	593	2.5%
Employment/population %	62.4%	62.1%	-0.3%	-0.5%
Unemployed	1,574	1,416	-158	-10.0%
Unemployment rate (%)	6.3%	5.6%	-0.7%	-11.1%
Not in labor force	12,545	13,245	700	5.6%
	Native born, 16 years and older
Civilian population	207,860	208,985	1,125	0.5%
Civilian labor force	130,776	130,448	-328	-0.3%
Participation rate (%)	62.9%	62.4%	-0.5%	-0.8%
Employed	121,048	122,421	1,373	1.1%
Employment/population %	58.2%	58.6%	0.4%	0.7%
Unemployed	9,728	8,027	-1,701	-17.5%
Unemployment rate (%)	7.4%	6.2%	-1.2%	-16.2%
Not in labor force	77,084	78,537	1,453	1.9%
Source: BLS, The Employment Situation - April 2014,Table A-7, June 6, 2014.PDF

 

Over the past 12 months:

• Immigrant employment rose by 593,000 positions, a 2.5% increase; native-born American workers rose by 1,373,000 positions, a mere 1.1% increase. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS
• The labor force participation rate (LPR) fell by 0.8 percentage points for immigrants and by 0.5 percentage points for native-born Americans. Nevertheless, the immigrant LPR remains well above that of native-born American. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS
• The number of unemployed native-born Americans fell by 17.5%. The corresponding figure for immigrants was a decline of 10.0%. Sounds good for native-born Americans—but it may simply reflect the expiration of extended unemployment benefits to millions of native-born American workers. Once the checks stop, so does the illusion that they’ll find a job, and they stop looking. At that point they are no longer counted as unemployed.

Overarching everything is the burgeoning gap in working-age population growth. Over the past year the number of foreign-born aged 16 and over rose by 3.0%. The corresponding rate for native-born Americans: 0.5%.

If these differentials persist, the number of working-age immigrants will double in only 24 years. It will take 144 years for native-born workers to match that.

We need a Depression-era moratorium to counter-balance our increasingly Depression-era economy.

Edwin S. Rubenstein (email him) is President of ESR Research Economic Consultants.