Congressional Budget Office Report Shows Increasing Role of immigrants in the U.S. Labor Market
September 1st, 2010Atlanta immigration lawyer Karen Weinstock reports regarding a recently issued report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) which shows the increasing role of immigrants in the U.S. labor market. The CBO must provide objective, nonpartisan analysis, and thus the report makes no recommendations, however various conclusions may be drawn from this report based on it very detailed analysis.
In 2009, there were 24 million foreign born members of the U.S. labor force, more than one in seven, an increase since 2004 where they represented one in 10. In 2009, 40 percent of the foreign-born labor force was from Mexico and Central America, and more than 25 percent was from Asia.
“The report shows that over half of the foreign-born workers from Mexico and Central America did not have a high school diploma or GED compared with just 6 percent of native-born workers. However, nearly half of the foreign-born workers from other countries held bachelor’s degrees or higher, compared with 35 percent of the native born workers”, said Karen Weinstock, Atlanta immigration attorney and the managing attorney of the Atlanta Immigration Law Firm Siskind Susser.
“The report demonstrates how foreign-born workers from Asia and other parts of the world are more highly educated relative to the U.S.-born and more than twice as likely as native-born workers to be in fields such as computer and mathematical sciences, which require a college education. These highly educated workers have average wages similar to those of native-born, which proves again that they are not paid any less”, said Weinstock, the Atlanta immigration law attorney.
“Even though the majority of Mexican and Central America born workers is undereducated relative to their U.S. counterparts, the report shows how vital their work is to the economy in construction, hospitality and other industries that do not require education but more difficult physical work”, said Weinstock, the Atlanta immigration lawyer, such industries that only 23 percent of native-born work in.
“As expected, the majority of the foreign-born labor force concentrated in California, New York, Florida, Texas, New Jersey and Illinois”, said the head of the Atlanta Immigration Law Firm. “Also interesting that foreign-born men were slightly less likely to be unemployed than the native born, but foreign-born women were slightly more likely to be unemployed than the native born women, which shows that foreign born workers are more likely to participate in the labor force – to have a job or to be looking for one”, added the Atlanta immigration lawyer, “even though the recent economic cycle hurt these industries the most”, she concluded.
