August 10, 2005

National Data, By Edwin S. Rubenstein

Employment Report Shows Immigrants Displacing Americans……Again

July’s better than expected payroll numbers—207,000 new jobs—spooked the financial markets last week. They saw it as an inflationary omen, likely to catch Alan Greenspan’s attention.

It’s a good thing that the “other” employment statistic—the one based on a survey of households—isn’t scrutinized as carefully. The Household Survey reported a whopping 438,000 new jobs in July, more than twice the payroll survey’s figure.

Since the start of the Bush Administration the household survey has registered 4.3 million new jobs versus a 1.3 million advance in the survey of establishments.

Which brings us to the point we keep making in VDARE.COM because the Mainstream Media won’t get the message: immigrants are getting a disproportionate share of those jobs. Americans are being shouldered aside.

As usual, the government makes no serious effort to measure immigration’s impact. Hispanic employment is the best proxy we have for the month to month increases in the immigrant workforce, since about 40 percent of all Hispanic workers—and an even larger share of new Hispanic workers—are immigrants,.

Hispanic employment rose by 75,000, or 0.4 percent, in July—compared to a 363,000, or 0.3 percent, rise in non-Hispanic employment.

Since the start of the Bush Administration (January 2001), Hispanic employment has risen by 2.585 million, or 16.0 percent. Non-Hispanic employment is up by 1.720 million, or 1.41 percent.

This is particularly shocking when you remember that Hispanics are only 15 percent of the workforce. Yet they got 60 percent of the job growth.

The displacement of native workers by immigrants is best measured by charting the trend of Hispanic and non-Hispanic employment growth, and the ratio of the two growth rates, which we call the VDARE.com American Worker Displacement Index [VDAWDI]:

VDAWDI rose to a record 114.4 in July, up from 114.3 in June and 112.5 in July 2004. The starting point, or base, of the index is 100.0 in January 2001. 

Final depressing note: The employment report also contained less than stellar news about personal incomes. Average hourly earnings rose 0.4 percent in July, but after adjusting for inflation, average wages were virtually unchanged from July 2004.

The construction industry was particularly hard hit. It suffered a 1.1 percent decline in real wages over the past year despite record home building activity.

Not coincidentally, construction is also the most immigrant intensive industry in the nation. Foreign-born Hispanics account for 48 percent of all “Plasters and stucco masons”, 45 percent of all “Drywall installers, ceiling tile installers, and tapers”, and 31 percent of “construction laborers”—according to a recent Pew Hispanic Center report.

All of which confirms the conclusions of George Borjas and other economists: immigration is beginning to hit the wages of Americans.

The new news, not yet recognized in academe: in aggregate, immigrants are now also directly separating Americans from jobs.

Look for it in the MSM—sometime real soon.