IMPACT OF IMMIGRANTS ON THE U.S. LABOR MARKET
A concern that has appeared and reappeared at intervals throughout the history of U.S. immigration policy is the potentially negative impact of immigration on the employment and wage prospects of U.S. workers. The recession of the late 1980s and the jobless recovery of the early 1990s have brought this concern into new prominence.
An enormous amount of research has, in fact, been done on the impact of immigration on the U.S. labor market, which adds up to a rather consistent picture. What follows is a survey of the major contributions to this literature—both aggregate statistical studies of the labor market and case studies of local labor markets and specific industries.
Overall Picture: Limited Impact
There is no strong evidence that immigration reduces overall availability of jobs or wages. Immigrants may reduce the employment opportunities of low-skill workers, however, especially in areas where the local economy is weak and immigrants are concentrated. Immigration does not hurt the job prospects of African Americans as a whole, but it reduces their economic opportunities in areas of high immigration during recessionary periods. New immigrants appear to hurt the overall labor market chances of one population group—the immigrants who immediately preceded them. Immigration may also be altering the movement of native workers into and out of high-immigration areas.
Immigrants contribute substantially to the U.S. economy. They create more jobs than they themselves fill. They do so directly by starting new businesses and indirectly through their expenditures on U.S. goods and services.
Strength of the Evidence
Although some findings can be stated with great confidence, others must be stated more tentatively for a variety of reasons.
- Data Limitations: Available data are limited in important ways. Many of the most rigorous studies of immigrants' labor market effects use census data that are now one to two decades old. Further, it is important to acknowledge the fact that the 1990 census, like the 1980 census, was conducted when the economy was at or near its peak (i.e., in 1979 and 1989). Thus, the degree to which immigrants compete with native workers for the same jobs may be understated. In addition, as noted previously, U.S. census data do not differentiate among legal immigrants, refugees, and undocumented immigrants.
- Unmeasured Benefits: Little effort has been made to measure the benefits immigrants bring to the U.S. economy, such as the jobs generated by their demand for goods and services. Estimates of the costs of immigration rarely factor in immigrant spending as an important, offsetting benefit.
- Limitations of Aggregate Data: Aggregate statistical studies can yield reliable estimates of the effects of immigrants on the job market as a whole. But aggregate data may mask the impact of immigrants on particular industries or high-immigration areas, where their competitive effects may be greater.
- Limitations of Case Study Evidence: Case studies of particular industries can correct this possible bias by providing insights into employer attitudes and hiring practices through ethnographic as well as economic methods. But the evidence they generate about job displacement or wage effects is limited to the firms studied, generally immigrant-intensive firms. What happens in the larger population is "outside the frame," preventing case-study data from yielding results that are generalizable to regional or national markets.
Source: http://www.urban.org/publications/305184.html#IV
|