Bureau of Labor Statistics data reveals that foreign-born workers have taken the overwhelming majority of new jobs in the United States since the pre-pandemic peak.
The analysis shows that approximately 90 percent of net new jobs created in the country from February 2020 to the present have been filled by foreign-born workers. Foreign-born employment has surged by 4.3 million since February 2020, while native-born employment growth has only increased by 471,000 over the same period.
This shift has raised the share of foreign-born workers in the U.S. workforce from 17.5 percent to 19.6 percent—nearly one in five Americans now being foreign-born. The disparity has sparked debate about labor market dynamics, with foreign-born employment growing 42 times faster than native-born employment since 2019. Over a longer timeframe, approximately 52 percent of new jobs have gone to foreign-born workers since 2007.
