Most New Jobs Going To The Foreign-Born

As the pandemic cratered the economy, it brought potentially the largest single drop in employment in history outside of the Great Depression. Beginning in February of 2020 and going through April, around 22 million jobs would disappear.

Many of those jobs would reappear in the following months as the economy came back and by 2023 it was effectively back to where it would have been if there were no pandemic. The economy continues to add jobs year over year as it did prior to 2020. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment report for January showed total non-farm payroll employment rose by 143,000 that month.

But most of those jobs have been for foreign workers. In fact, the employment level for native-born workers has been in steady decline for over a year—something unique for a non-recession.

Almost all of that is for native-born men. Employment level for native born men went from a relative high of 69.3 million in July of 2023 to 67.6 million in January of 2025, below what it was pre-pandemic.

The growth in jobs for foreign-born applicants is no surprise. Data from the BLS shows a sharp growth in the civilian foreign-born workforce since 2020—over 5 million in less than five years. That aligns with the sharp growth in the foreign-born population according to Census data from the American Community Survey. According to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics’ (OHSS) Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, almost 1 million naturalizations of foreign residents occurred in 2022 alone.

But the decline in native-born employment is not so cut and dry. The labor force participation rate took a hit during the pandemic as many moved into retirement early, but it has since rebounded with no sign that it is declining over the last year.

Government Spending and Job Creation

In general, jobs are added to the economy year over year outside of seasonal dips and recessions, but with three years since the pandemic, steadily growing GDP, high government spending, and not significantly high interest rates, there is no real sign of a recession to account for native job declines.

While they are often correlated, there is no guarantee that high government spending leads to job creation.