The impact of illegal immigration on jobs is significant in agriculture and construction industries, with the undocumented workers taking a “disproportionate share,” including over a quarter of all farm jobs, according to a new analysis of federal data.
Illegals make up about 5 percent of the total U.S. workforce, but because far more are younger and of working age than the overall population, they have an outsized impact on jobs, according to the analysis from the Pew Research Center.
Pew said that as of the 2014, illegals held:
— 26 percent of farm jobs.
— 15 percent of construction jobs.
— 9 percent of production jobs.
— 9 percent of service industry jobs.
“There were 8 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. working or looking for work in 2014, making up 5 percent of the civilian labor force,” said Pew.
“Compared with their 5 percent share of the civilian workforce, they were overrepresented in the agriculture (17%) and construction (13%) sectors, as well as in the leisure and hospitality industry (9%). They were underrepresented in some sectors such as the educational and health services sector and the financial and information industries. By occupation, unauthorized immigrants held a higher share of U.S. farming jobs (26%) in 2014 than would be expected given their share of the workforce. They also held a disproportionate share of construction jobs (15%),” said the research and polling outfit.
Still, Pew assures, “there is no sector or occupation where unauthorized immigrant workers were a majority; in all industries or occupations, they were outnumbered by U.S.-born workers.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
