May Jobs: It’s Baaack!—Immigrant Displacement Of American Workers Resumes (As Does Immigration Surge)

Article author: 
Edwin S. Rubenstein
Article publisher: 
VDare
Article date: 
8 June 2015
Article category: 
Our American Future
Medium
Article Body: 
U.S. employers pumped out another 280,000 jobs in May, suggesting that the recent slowdown was a temporary, weather-related phenomenon. The unemployment rate ticked up, to 5.5% from 5.4% the prior month, but even this was seen as a bullish sign—the result of more newly-confident people entering the labor force.
 
Good luck to the new arrivals. But some bad news:
  • The Black unemployment rate rose to 10.2% in May, up from 9.6% the prior month.
  • The Hispanic unemployment rate fell to 6.7% in May from 6.9% in April. This group includes both legal and illegal immigrants (probably about 49.3% of Hispanics) as well as native-born We would love to tell you how each of these sub-groups fared, but the government’s monthly employment report provides no details, although the data certainly exists.
  • White unemployment was unchanged, at 4.7%...
We see it as a three-tiered economy: the skilled, who are always in demand (although skilled Americans face wage depression because of immigrant competition); the unskilled immigrants, who are finding jobs; and the unskilled native-born Americans, who for years have been displaced by their immigrant counterparts.
 
Thus, some more bad news: The “other” employment survey, of households rather than businesses, reports the latest chapter in the American worker displacement story. In May:
  • Total employment rose by 273,000—up by 0.2%
  • Native-born American employment rose by 151,000—up by 0.1%
  • Foreign-born immigrant employment rose by 122,000—up by 0.5%
About 45% of May’s total job gain went to immigrants...