OfTheCross
Veteran
At my previous employer we started with 3 Americans, and we all left for better jobs, but there are 3 immigrants running it now. An Arab, a Jamaican and a Haitian.
www.marketplace.org
A shortage of workers has been one of many economic trends that’s emerged during the pandemic. One contributing factor was a drop in immigration. Immigrants have accounted for a major share of labor force growth for many years, and some experts say their absence contributed to the inflation the country has been grappling with.
Half the growth in the labor force since the year 2000 has come from immigrants, according to Mark Regets, a senior fellow at the National Foundation for American Policy.
“They actually became more important during the pandemic,” he said. “They have been all of the labor force growth over the last three years.”
But that labor force has stalled. Early retirement among Americans generally was one big cause; a fall in immigration was another.
“We saw some restrictions on immigration during the Trump administration, but immigration really fell when the COVID-19 pandemic hit,” said Julia Gelatt, a senior analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “And the number of legal immigrants coming to the U.S. fell by half between 2019 and 2020.”
Has the drop in immigration contributed to inflation?
Immigrants have accounted for a major share of labor force growth for years, increasing production, which keeps inflation lower, experts say.
A shortage of workers has been one of many economic trends that’s emerged during the pandemic. One contributing factor was a drop in immigration. Immigrants have accounted for a major share of labor force growth for many years, and some experts say their absence contributed to the inflation the country has been grappling with.
Half the growth in the labor force since the year 2000 has come from immigrants, according to Mark Regets, a senior fellow at the National Foundation for American Policy.
“They actually became more important during the pandemic,” he said. “They have been all of the labor force growth over the last three years.”
But that labor force has stalled. Early retirement among Americans generally was one big cause; a fall in immigration was another.
“We saw some restrictions on immigration during the Trump administration, but immigration really fell when the COVID-19 pandemic hit,” said Julia Gelatt, a senior analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “And the number of legal immigrants coming to the U.S. fell by half between 2019 and 2020.”
