News from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on foreign-born workers.
Foreign-born workers’ share of the U.S. workforce continued to grow, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. In 2006, foreign-born workers made up 15.3 percent of the U.S. civilian labor force age 16 and over, up from 14.8 percent in 2005. The unemployment rate for the foreign born fell for the third year in a row, to 4.0 percent in 2006. The jobless rate of the native born also continued to decline, decreasing from 5.2 to 4.7 percent over the year.
While the Melting Pot index (foreign-born population) is highly correlated with a Creative Class population, the story points out some of the limits of this relationship.
A smaller proportion of foreign-born than native-born workers was employed in management, professional, and related occupations, 26.4 versus 36.4 percent. Foreign-born workers were more likely than their native-born counterparts to be employed in service occupations (22.5 versus 15.4 percent); these included food preparation and serving related occupations and building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations. Foreign-born workers also were more likely than native-born workers to be employed in natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations (16.5 versus 10.0 percent), and in production, transportation, and aterial moving occupations (16.7 versus 11.9 percent).
Full story here.
posted by Kevin Stolarick
April 27th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
A weakness of BLS figures is they don’t count self employed people. This misses many small immigrant entrepreneurs who would be counted as managerial otherwise. It also downplays the skills of the foreign professional in a working class job here — the famous Russian doctor driving a cab, etc.
Also, an observation. I increasingly notice that much of the cooking staff of many good restaurants (Italian, regional cuisine, seafood, etc.) are Hispanic — anywhere that the owner’s family isn’t the main workforce. The music in the dining area may be classical, but in the kitchen it’s salsa. My prediction is that in 5-10 years we’re going to see these cooks opening their own high-end restaurants and joining the creative class. The same movement may be true from construction to craftsman and from gardener to landscape designer.
April 28th, 2007 at 3:39 am
Does anyone have statistics for the foreign born workers in Silicon Valley? I was told that they make up a huge portion of the population (This person claimed 60 percent)