The headline job story for this month is, well, the same old story. October payrolls rose by 80,000, which was slightly shy of the very modest expectations of most economists, but enough to push unemployment down by one-tenth of one percent, to 9.0%.
Of course, the Main Stream Media doesn’t tell you that those two factoids come from different surveys. Payrolls are from a survey of employers; the unemployment rate is calculated from a survey of households. The Household Survey records the race, ethnicity, and nativity (but not legal status) of its respondents. That might explain why it is so rarely vetted by the MSM.
Household Survey employment rose by 277,000 in October—more than three-times the payroll survey figure. That’s good news—until you drill down to the details.
We do that for immigrant and native-born a.k.a. American employment in our New VDARE.com American Worker Displacement Index (NVDAWDI), and for Hispanics and non-Hispanics in our classic VDARE.com American Worker Displacement Index (VDAWDI).
The New VDAWDI is “new” because, amazingly, it wasn’t until January 2010 that the Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS] began publishing monthly job figures for immigrant and native-born workers. And, unfortunately, these data are still not seasonally adjusted, making month to month trends difficult to interpret. We resolve this problem by applying the immigrant and native-born American employment shares as calculated from unadjusted data to the seasonally adjusted employment total.
We estimate that in October foreign-born employment rose by 389,000 positions, an increase of 1.8%, while native-born American employment fell by 112,000, or by 0.1%.
To calculate New VDAWDI we set native-born American and immigrant employment when President Obama assumed office in January 2009 at 100 each. From that January to this October immigrant employment rose by 4.1%—pushing the immigrant employment index up to 104.1. Over the same period, native-born American employment declined by 2.3%, putting the native-born employment index down to 97.7. We then take the ratio of immigrant to native-born employment indexes and multiply by 100.
Bottom line: in October NVDAWDI rose to 106.6 – or 100 times 104.1 divided by 97.7.
The resurgence of American worker displacement by immigrants is confirmed by comparing the seasonally unadjusted figures for October 2010 and October 2011. In particular, October was the first month since May in which immigrants gained jobs at a faster clip than American workers when compared to the same month of last year:.
Employment Status by Nativity, Oct. 2010-Oct. 2011 | |||||
(numbers in 1000s; not seasonally adjusted) | |||||
|
| Oct-10 | Oct-11 | Change | % Change |
|
| Foreign born, 16 years and older | |||
Civilian population | 36,341 | 37,001 | 660 | 1.8% | |
Civilian labor force | 24,530 | 24,849 | 319 | 1.3% | |
Participation rate (%) | 67.5% | 67.2% | -0.3% pts. | -0.4% | |
Employed | 22,281 | 22,648 | 367 | 1.6% | |
Employment/population % | 61.3% | 61.2% | -0.1% pts. | -0.2% | |
Unemployed | 2,249 | 2,201 | -48 | -2.1% | |
Unemployment rate (%) | 9.2% | 8.9% | -0.3% pts. | -3.3% | |
Not in labor force | 11,811 | 12,152 | 341 | 2.9% | |
| Native born, 16 years and older | ||||
Civilian population | 202,189 | 203,268 | 1,079 | 0.5% | |
Civilian labor force | 129,122 | 129,239 | 117 | 0.1% | |
Participation rate (%) | 63.9% | 63.6% | -0.3%pts. | -0.5% | |
Employed | 117,468 | 118,338 | 870 | 0.7% | |
Employment/population % | 58.1% | 58.2% | 0.1% pts. | 0.2% | |
Unemployed | 11,654 | 10,901 | -753 | -6.5% | |
Unemployment rate (%) | 9.0% | 8.4% | -0.6% pts. | -6.7% | |
Not in labor force | 73,067 | 74,029 | 962 | 1.3% | |
Source: BLS, "The Employment Situation - October 2011," November 4, 2011. Table A-7. |
Over the past 12 months:
VDAWDI classic, which used Hispanic job growth as a proxy for immigrant employment because so many Hispanics are foreign-born, provides further evidence that the displacement hiatus is over:
In October 2011:
Hispanic job growth—more than 1 percent in October—is extraordinary. If it continues, we will see a doubling of the Hispanic employment in 72 months. Extrapolate this further and you have not displacement, but takeover.
What are the odds that immigrant-driven American worker displacement will make it into the upcoming GOP Presidential candidates’ debate on November 9?
Edwin S. Rubenstein (email him) is President of ESR Research Economic Consultants in Indianapolis.