Since about
half of Hispanics are foreign-born, we use Hispanic
employment as an indicator of immigrant employment—data
which the government, disgracefully, does not collect.
September marked the
third month in a row in which Hispanic job growth lagged
that of non-Hispanics. This is, of course, anomalous in
recent history. Since George W. Bush
took office (January 2001)
Hispanic employment has risen by 3,438,000 positions
– a gain of 21.3 percent—while 3,636,000 jobs were
filled by
non-Hispanics—a gain of 3.0 percent. This powerful
seven-fold Hispanic job growth trend is reflected in
VDARE.COM’s American Worker Displacement Index [VDAWDI].
But monthly data seems to be prone to noise, as was also
apparently the case in 2004.
We have long argued
that the "official" Payroll employment stats were
flawed—that the actual rate of job creation was much
larger, closer to that reflected in the
Household Survey.
The surveys tell very
different stories. The Payroll Survey estimated that
135.6 million workers held jobs in September. The
Household Survey counted 144.9 million—i.e. more than 9
million more.
Since Bush’s
inauguration in January 2001, Payroll employment first
declined, then
recovered. In September 2006 Payroll employment was
3,159,000 above where it was at the start of the Bush
administration. But the Household Survey employment is
currently 7,072,000 above its January 2001 level.
Why the gap? Some
economists have argued that it’s the
"new economy".
Self-employed workers such as part-time
consultants,
eBay entrepreneurs, and even
real estate agents show up in the Household Survey,
but not in the Payroll Survey.
We have argued that
there’s a better explanation: illegal aliens. They will
tend
not to show up in the Payroll Survey for the simple
reason that employers who admit to hiring them risk
stiff penalties. (Even though the
Bush Administrations appears to have
quietly abandoned enforcing these laws.)
By a very
cautious count (for example, in
this Federal Reserve Bank paper) there are 8 to 10
million illegals living in America. (It may be as
high as
20 million.) About 6 million of them are working. By
some estimates, illegals account for half of the
overall growth in
adult immigrant employment since 2000.[A
Jobless Recovery? Immigrant Gains and Native Losses
By Steven A. Camarota, Center For Immigration
Studies]
The gap between the
two employment surveys (9 million jobs) strikingly
resembles the estimated number of
illegal immigrant workers (6 million).
Official Washington
may be coming around to our view. In a statement
released with the September figures, Acting Bureau of
Labor Statistics Commissioner Philip L. Rones announced
an unusually large upward revision to payroll
employment:
"Preliminary tabulations of employment from state
unemployment insurance tax reports indicate that the
estimate of total nonfarm payroll employment for March
2006 will require an upward revision of approximately
810,000, or six-tenths of one percent. The historical
average for the benchmark revision over the prior 10
years has been plus or minus two-tenths of one percent.
BLS currently is researching possible sources for
this larger-than-normal expected revision
[our italics]…"
[Statement
of Philip L. Rones, October 6, 2006]
Stay tuned: Illegal
aliens may finally be included among the "possible
sources" of our employment undercount.
VDARE.COM’s
recommended next step for government data moles: collect
good data on
immigrant displacement of Americans. Judging from
that long-run
Hispanic employment trend, it may be even worse than
we think.
Edwin S. Rubenstein (email
him) is President of
ESR Research Economic Consultants in Indianapolis.
