The full report is also available in pdf.

 

A report released on June 20, 2007, by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) argues that the increase in the number of less-educated immigrant workers in Georgia between 2000 and 2006 causedemployment levels among less-educated natives to decline. However, there is no evidence of a direct, negative relationship between employment levels for immigrants and natives in Georgia. Instead, evidence suggests that immigration has had generally positive effects for most native-born workers and that employment levels among less-educated natives have declined for reasons unrelated to immigration.

 

Research conducted by Jeffrey Humphreys, Director of the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia, found that less-educated natives in Georgia were either retiring from the workforce or moving “up” into better jobs.During the period of highest immigration, beginning in 1996, unemployment levels among native-born workers remained very low, according to Humphries.[i]

 

Moreover, data show that the number of less-educated native-born workers in Georgia is declining—not because these workers are losing their jobs to immigrants, but because the size of the less-educated native-born labor force is shrinking. As the attached chart illustrates, the ranks of less-educated native-born workers are shrinking at a faster rate than less-educated immigrant workers are entering the labor force.

The construction industry in Georgia is a good example of the fallacy of the CIS argument. Humphreys found that immigration allowed the industry to expand rapidly, which has increased the total number of jobs available to all workers, both native-born and immigrant. While more and more immigrants are filling these construction jobs, this does not mean that native-born workers are being displaced. Immigration has stimulated growth in the size of the total workforce, and this expanded job pool benefits all workers and the economy as a whole.

 

The CIS report also implies that native-born workers and immigrant workers are competing for the same jobs in the same industries. Research on immigration in Georgia shows that less-educated immigrant workers are heavily concentrated in particular industries and that their distribution in the workforce is quite different from that of native-born workers.[ii] As a result, the prospect of direct competition for jobs is not as great as is commonly assumed. Moreover, immigrants comprise such a small share of the total workforce that their impact on the native-born, if any, is relatively small.

 

For example, according to data from the 2004 American Community Survey, 64 percent of foreign-born Latinos (the dominant immigrant group in Georgia) were found in three industries: construction, manufacturing, and recreation/tourism. By contrast, only 27 percent of native-born workers were found in the same industries. Even in these three industries, foreign-born Latinos numbered only 125,373 workers, compared to 1,040,204 native-born workers. All told, foreign-born Latinos were just 11 percent of the total Georgia workforce in construction, manufacturing, and recreation/tourism. Therefore, the possibility of serious job competition is extremely limited to begin with.

 

A closer look at the manufacturing sector—using the very same data as CIS—further illustrates the basic fallacy in the CIS report. Manufacturing is the sector that recorded the greatest decline in employment among less-educated native-born workers between 2000 and 2005, a total of 34,388 workers. But this decline was not matched by corresponding increases in immigrant employment. Immigrant employment declined by 3,291 workers in the non-durable goods sector and increased by just 2,609 workers in the durable goods sector. The overall increase in immigrant employment in the manufacturing sector was only 672 workers.

 

The CIS report focuses on one small segment of the native-born workforce in Georgia—the least educated—that might seem to be the most vulnerable to competition from immigrant workers, especially during an economic downturn. However, there is no evidence of any significant job displacement among less-educated native-born workers due to immigration in recent years. The data for Georgia confirm a more general trend witnessed in most states since 1990: most immigrants are drawn to booming sectors of the economy where wages are relatively high and unemployment is relatively low.[iii] Rather than increasing unemployment, immigration expands production and increases total employment to the benefit of immigrants and natives alike.[iv]

 

June 22, 2007

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