Immigrant Workers in the U.S. Labor Force
Date: March 15, 2012
The Brookings Institution and New American Economy published “Immigrant Workers in the U.S. Labor Force,” a study analyzing the differences in both the occupations and education levels of immigrant and native-born workers in the American economy and found that even when working the same sectors, immigrants and native-born gravitate towards different jobs.
The study provides new insight into the roles of immigrants in the American workforce by providing industry-specific analysis of four low-skilled and four high-skilled sectors of the economy: accommodation, agricultural, construction, food services, healthcare, high tech manufacturing, information technology, and life science sectors. The data shows that immigration adds to diversity of the American workforce. Immigrants are more likely than native-born Americans to be of working age and, in many of the sectors analyzed, immigrants fill different roles than native-born workers. Immigrants play especially prominent roles in eight of the 15 fields projected to create the largest number of jobs in the next decade.
