By Edwin Rubenstein
The last pre-election employment report showed an uptick in the unemployment rate—to 7.9% from 7.8%. America’s employers did add 171,000 positions in October, but the labor force grew faster.
The real news: this month, as throughout the Obama Administration, immigrant job growth outpaced job growth among native-born Americans.
This displacement issue finally made it into Drudge via the Washington Times yesterday—but it’s utterly absent from the Presidential campaign. Mitt Romney has thrown the issue away by going the full Chamber of Commerce on skilled immigration.
The white unemployment rate was unchanged, at 7.0%. Hispanic unemployment rose slightly, to 10.0% from 9.9%. Black unemployment rocketed to 14.3% in October from 13.4% in September. This pattern is consistent with the displacement of minority workers by low skilled immigrants—perhaps the biggest story never told during this election cycle.
Legal immigration is running at about 90,000 per month, so more than half of October’s payroll employment growth may have been required just to absorb new arrivals. The total labor force rose by 578,000 last month, fueled mainly by an increase in job hunters among people who had been too discouraged to look for work the prior month.
The “other” employment survey, of households rather than employers, found 410,000 more people working in October than in September. Our analysis shows immigrants gained jobs at twice the rate of native-born Americans. In October: > Total employment rose by 410,000, or by 0.29%
> Native-born employment rose by 271,000, or by 0.23%
> Foreign-born employment rose by 139,000, or by 0.60%
Overall, the Obama years have been disastrous for native-born workers. The deterioration in native-born employment in both absolute terms and, more dramatically, relative to foreign-born employment, is highlighted in the New VDARE.com American Worker Displacement Index (NVDAWDI):
October 2012 VDAWDI
Native employment growth is the black line, immigrant employment growth is in pink, and NVAWDI—the ratio of immigrant to native job growth—is yellow.
From January 2009 to October 2012:
> Foreign-born employment rose 1.635 million, or by 7.6%
> Native-born employment fell by 0.472 million, or by 0.4%
Since Obama took office native-born job losses are nearly one-third the immigrant job gains. Put differently, during the Obama era one native-born worker has been displaced per every three foreign-born workers added to the U.S. workforce.
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