Add Declining Immigration to Problems Weighing on the Labor Market
Source: Hackman, M. (2022, April 5). “Add Declining Immigration to Problems Weighing on the Labor Market.” The Wall Street Journal
As immigration to the U.S. began to slow down during the Trump administration and further declined during the COVID-19 pandemic due to Title 42, there are approximately 2.4 million fewer working-age immigrants in the country than if previous immigration trends from 2017 had continued. Moreover, immigrants currently in the U.S. are experiencing larger wait times to receive their work permits, with 1.6 million work permit applications with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services still pending as of December 2021. Combined with the large layoffs in 2020 as a result of the pandemic, employers are currently struggling to hire new workers as many employees are now leaving firms for a variety of reasons such as age, COVID-19 concerns, and family.
Since industries with a higher share of foreign-born workers are more likely to have vacant positions, industries such as healthcare are especially hit with a labor shortage given the slowdown of immigrants of working-age into the U.S. over the past few years. Furthermore, there’s been a reported rise in wages in healthcare and hospitality industries, although immigration has been considered only a small factor to the case. However, with 99% of nursing homes and 96% of assisted-living facilities reporting staff shortages as of September 2021, there is a clear indication that the slowdown of immigration has contributed to the matter as 17.2% of workers in healthcare and social assistance industries are foreign-born. An explanation to the pressing staff shortages in such industries in correlation with a slowdown of immigration is that immigrant workers are most likely to be complementary to native workers rather than perfect substitutes. Immigrants don’t often work in sectors that compete with natives unless highly educated. Therefore, it is sensible that the lack of immigrant share of the American population contributes to the staff shortages in certain industries in the current labor market such as construction, hospitality, and healthcare.
One thought on “Add Declining Immigration to Problems Weighing on the Labor Market”
Very well done. Your post highlights one of the key themes that I’ve noticed in our course. That is that the American perspective on immigration is often unilateral. For example, many Americans are unaware of what the Title 42 policy even is and the issues it has posed for immigrants in the United States. However, when COVID hit and inflicted pressure on our healthcare system, Americans were concerned with the shortage of workers in hospitals. At this point, most people would have been extremely welcoming to immigrants because their services were needed. So the perspective of immigration by many Americans is contingent on their personal interests and never the interests of those coming into the country. Your blog post and COVID in general made me think about this.