Recession hits immigrant workforce harder than native workforce

Immigrant workers, regardless of their legal status or skill level, are more likely to be hard hit by the economic situation than others. - - Donna Poisl

Foreign-born workers -- both skilled and unskilled, legal and illegal -- have endured greater increases in joblessness than their native-born counterparts over the last 18 months, one study shows.

By Teresa Watanabe

Immigrants have been hit harder than native-born Americans by the recession, with larger increases in joblessness among both educated and uneducated workers, according to a study released today.

Immigrants in California -- both legal and illegal -- fared particularly poorly, with jobless rates here nearly tripling to 12.2% in the first quarter of 2009, compared with 4.5% in the third quarter of 2007, according to the report by the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based research group that supports immigration restrictions. The study is based on U.S. Census statistics.

Nationally, the immigrant jobless rate rose to 9.7% from 4.1% during that period, while the rate for native-born workers rose to 8.6% from 4.8%.

The jobless rate for Latino immigrants grew twice as fast as that for non-Latino immigrants, the study showed.
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