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How a Historic Immigration Drop Is Changing the Job Market

RedFishBlueFish

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From the Wall Street Journal link

Last week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the U.S. labor market has entered “a curious kind of balance.” The demand for workers has cooled, yet the unemployment rate has held steady because the supply of labor has slowed abruptly.

Behind that slowing in the labor supply is a dramatic swing in immigration, from one of the biggest waves in U.S. history to almost none. Economists say that could have subtle but lasting consequences.

A virtual halt to unauthorized border crossings, plus stepped-up deportations and a souring climate for foreigners means net immigration this year could be negative for the first time in decades, some experts predict.

Economists and demographers say immigrants already account for the vast majority of growth in both the population and labor supply. With zero net immigration, Apollo Chief Economist Torsten Slok estimates, the U.S. economy would be able to sustainably add only about 24,000 nonfarm jobs a month, compared with an average 155,000 from 2015 through 2024.

Since economic output depends on the number of workers and their productivity, lower immigration mechanically lowers the growth rate. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal last month expect Trump’s immigration policies to subtract around 0.2 percentage point from growth in 2025 and 0.3 point in 2026.

Just like the tariffs, the near-halt of legal immigration and crack down on undocumented workers will take a while to show up in our economy. But this combination will not help the US economy like the MAGA idiots think. We will pay for it with a lower growth rate. Higher prices from tariffs + lower growth rates = what? Hopefully just stagflation and not a recession.

MSN provides a free copy of this article here MSN link
 
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It's all just one messed up egotistical know-it-all mind shooting from the hip and forcing his poorly thought out way on everybody else. There has been no in-depth analysis nor reviewed studies by experts. We are in uncharted waters. It's hard to predict what this will do to our economy, but it does not look very promising.

With so many fewer workers producing, who is going to be paying into Social Security?

With prices ricing, consumerism is likely to drop. That will result in fewer jobs, less overall income, and fewer people paying taxes.

It's like Trump is trying to use the momentum of the economy to pump it up, but the drag of tapping the economic momentum is instead slowing it down.

We are likely to see a dropping GDP. If that goes on, it's called a recession.

The guy who forced all of this on us doesn't want accurate reporting of the statistics so he fired the BLS manager. That is not a good sign. Pretend numbers are not real numbers and they do not relate to previous numbers in a substantive way.
 
Gee... Unemployed people on welfare and government entitlements taking jobs that illegals use to do. Who in the world could have predicted that!?
 
dmpi said:
Gee... Unemployed people on welfare and government entitlements taking jobs that illegals use to do. Who in the world could have predicted that!?
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Here's what Google's AI bot had to say about that,

Economic data and research do not support the claim that unemployed Americans on welfare and government benefits are taking jobs previously held by undocumented immigrants. The two groups typically do not compete for the same jobs.....

Feel free to source and post information to the contrary.
 
Well... I guess when the illegals left, they somehow took their job with them.
 
dmpi said:
Gee... Unemployed people on welfare and government entitlements taking jobs that illegals use to do. Who in the world could have predicted that!?
Click to expand...
Got a source for that claim?
 
RedFishBlueFish said:
Behind that slowing in the labor supply is a dramatic swing in immigration, from one of the biggest waves in U.S. history to almost none.
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This is interesting. Last year we were told by Democrats -- and many posters on the site -- that reducing illegal immigration was impossible because of "Republican obstructionism" blocking last year's immigration bill, and that was the reason the Biden administration was unable to make no meaningful progress.

I suppose they were, um, mistaken. Yes, that's it.
 
dmpi said:
Gee... Unemployed people on welfare and government entitlements taking jobs that illegals use to do. Who in the world could have predicted that!?
Click to expand...

That's not necessarily what's happening. It's probably not yet clear what's happening. The immigrant labor supply is apparently declining, but that doesn't automatically mean that American-born citizens are stepping into those positions.
 
multivita-man said:
That's not necessarily what's happening. It's probably not yet clear what's happening. The immigrant labor supply is apparently declining, but that doesn't automatically mean that American-born citizens are stepping into those positions.
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There's a number of possible scenarios. 1) Not all immigrants worked. 2) When immigrants leave, their jobs go too. This can be true when their job is to support immigrants, for example you run a store or restaurant that caters to immigrants. 3) With less immigrants, goverment and the economy need to provide less overall support shrinking overall need for labor. Ultimately though, somebody is doing the farming and food production jobs that these illegals use to do or you'll be seeing a huge shortages.
 

Immigrants have a net positive impact on the economy.

Immigration Is Powering the U.S. Economy

The U.S. economy has made a remarkable recovery from the pandemic. Immigrants are a big part of that success.
time.com
 
Here's a thought. Maybe all of us -- including "economists and demographers" -- need to learn to make do without the benefits of illegal labor. A work force, BTW, that is often heavily exploited given that they're in no position to complain about worker safety issues or other dangerous practices from their employers.
 
NatMorton said:
So did slaves. See post #11.
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Nope. Jobs are voluntary. Slavery is not.

But regardless- I am glad you disagree with the argument that these immigrants were stealing American jobs, and agree that they were helping the economy.
 
ataraxia said:
Nope. Jobs are voluntary. Slavery is not.

But regardless- I am glad you disagree with the argument that these immigrants were stealing American jobs, and agree that they were helping the economy.
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And I'm sorry you're pleased to be exploiting workers who lack rights.
 
ataraxia said:
Nope. Jobs are voluntary. Slavery is not.

But regardless- I am glad you disagree with the argument that these immigrants were stealing American jobs, and agree that they were helping the economy.
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How voluntary is a job though, really? You'd end up with nothing and on the streets in short order if you "chose" to not work.
 
fireflygmf said:
How voluntary is a job though, really? You'd end up with nothing and on the streets in short order if you "chose" to not work.
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Or the manipulative employer who says "Yes, you can leave, but I can't promise someone here won't report you."
 
There's many facets to the exploitation. Employers exploited illegals. Illegals exploited the goverment entitlement and welfare system along with the tax code by working under the table.
 
dmpi said:
There's many facets to the exploitation. Employers exploited illegals. Illegals exploited the goverment entitlement and welfare system along with the tax code by working under the table.
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What is happening now is not the answer.

And it's still not true that this was hurting the US economy, and lots of evidence that it was helping it.
 

Not necessarily.

dmpi said:
or you'll be seeing a huge shortages.
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Prices seem to be rising, so what does that tell you about the balance between supply and demand at the moment?
 
With enough deportations, wages will go up and rents (and to a lesser extent, housing prices) will go down. It will take some time. More ICE needed.
 
TobyOne said:
With enough deportations, wages will go up and rents (and to a lesser extent, housing prices) will go down. It will take some time. More ICE needed.
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And you think the corporations will pay the cost of those higher wages and tariffs? LOL OK.
 
Do you understand how supply and demand works?

ataraxia said:
And you think the corporations will pay the cost of those higher wages and tariffs? LOL OK.
Click to expand...
 
TobyOne said:
With enough deportations, wages will go up
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Why would you assume that - because there's suddenly now a shortage of labor? You can't just take freshly-minted college graduates and put them into the trades or the fields. Moreover, the labor supply that was shipped across the border took consumer demand with it. Coupled with tariffs and layoffs in sectors that migrant workers were never competitive in, you've got the recipe for softening consumer demand, and our economy continues to depend on consumption, and likely will for the foreseeable future.

TobyOne said:
and rents (and to a lesser extent, housing prices) will go down.
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In some areas, perhaps so, but that's not going to help if we continue to allow real estate to be bought up by those with excess capital. I've never been against enforcing immigration laws and deportations. My point all along has been that it's not migrants who are screwing the working class that was born nearly as bad as the investment class - both the investment class that was born here and also the investment class immigrates here because they have means.

TobyOne said:
It will take some time. More ICE needed.
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Sure, that's the solution for everything. Turn the US into a perpetual national security and war state.
 
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