{"id":1151873,"date":"2026-08-16T13:22:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T13:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1151873\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T13:22:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T13:22:21","slug":"mark-zandi-of-moodys-us-born-unemployment-rising-despite-immigration-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1151873\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Zandi of Moody’s: US-born unemployment rising despite immigration fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump was clear in his pitch to voters: In 2024, he pledged to bring back the American Dream. Removing immigrants \u201ctaking jobs\u00a0from American workers<\/a> and driving down their wages\u201d was a key part of the plan.<\/p>\n

A few years later, the effects of this policy are now visible in the labor market. January data from the Census Bureau<\/a> showed an historic decline in net international migration, down from a peak of 2.7 million people in 2024 to an estimated 321,000 by mid-2026. Brookings puts that figure even lower<\/a>, saying the U.S. could see negative net migration this year.<\/p>\n

Economists previously told Fortune<\/a> that this changing pattern has helped stabilize the U.S. unemployment rate as demand has dropped over the past few years, with the rate holding steady at 4.1% in the latest data<\/a>. But Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody\u2019s, recently noted foreign-born unemployment fell below native-born unemployment in October 2025, based on analysis of a 12-month moving average of seasonally unadjusted data.<\/p>\n

The drop in foreign-born unemployment is relatively easy to explain, Zandi tells Fortune: The immigrant labor force is shrinking because of White House policy, and unemployment for the demographic is relatively lower as a result. <\/p>\n

The rise in native-born unemployment is more complex. A major driver is that demand for labor has generally fallen, Zandi tells Fortune\u2014so it stands to reason that if U.S.-born workers now make up a larger share of the labor force, this cohort would be affected more heavily by changes in demand.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s also the issue that the careers and wages immigrant workers have been willing to commit to aren\u2019t viewed in the same way by native workers.<\/p>\n

The Bureau of Labor Statistics writes<\/a> that in 2025, foreign-born workers were more likely than native-born workers to be employed in sectors like construction, trucking, and natural resources, as well as health and personal care. The median weekly earnings of foreign-born, full-time wage and salary workers are also lower\u2014immigrants earn 85.7% of the pay earned by their native-born counterparts, the BLS notes.<\/p>\n

President Trump\u2019s theory is being tested: It seems even if native-born Americans face reduced competition for roles, they don\u2019t want the jobs anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just goes to show how difficult many of these jobs are,\u201d Zandi said. \u201cNative-born workers would take them, but it would require much, much higher wages \u2026 [and that] would make it uneconomic for the businesses to actually produce whatever it is they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese jobs are typically ones that are very difficult, very arduous jobs that require a lot of physical hardship, and the native-born workers just haven\u2019t done these jobs for quite some time and are in no mood to take them now\u2014certainly not at these wages.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Societal framing<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a lag on the skills and awareness of the jobs which have been typically occupied by immigrants, Zandi explains: \u201cThese jobs have been held by immigrants for years, decades, generations, and native born workers don\u2019t have the predilection or the skills to be able to do these jobs\u2014at least not anytime soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOver time, that may change, but that\u2019s not the case today. There\u2019s all kinds of impediments to native born people taking these jobs because \u2026 it\u2019s not even in their thought process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zandi added: \u201cIn many cases it goes beyond the job itself, some of the jobs are \u2026 in very remote areas of the country where housing is very different, and other amenities and services just aren\u2019t available. So it goes beyond the job to the infrastructure and support for the people living there. So immigrant workers have been willing to do it, but native born historically have not, and it\u2019s going to take an awful lot to get them to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House insists the plan is working. Spokesman Kush Desai told Fortune: \u201cUnchecked illegal immigration had long depressed wages for American workers. Thanks to President Trump\u2019s commonsense border security and immigration enforcement agenda, real wages for American workers in key sectors, including construction, manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing, are growing by leaps and bounds compared to overall wage growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe simple reality is that President Trump is delivering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Data from the New York Fed<\/a> somewhat supports that claim. The regional Federal Reserve bank reported in May that public administration and the construction and mining industries have seen wage growth, either because of demand related to the construction of AI data centers or because of D.C. policy, \u201cespecially since the construction industry tends to rely on immigrant workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the report found that most industries have experienced a synchronized decline in wage growth since 2022.<\/p>\n

Zandi suspects that in the coming years, immigration policy will be forced to reverse, but the immediate impact of the labor market trade-off will be stagflationary. Prices will rise, he believes, without a corresponding jump in output. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe supply-side stagflationary shock of tariffs does the same thing,\u201d he added. \u201cThe Iran war is also a stagflationary or a supply shock. So you\u2019ve got these three massive, policy-induced supply-side shocks that are reducing growth and lifting inflation, and the only reason why the economy isn\u2019t in complete shambles is because of AI.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump was clear in his pitch to voters: In 2024, he pledged to bring back the American…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1151874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3090],"tags":[51,32,1700,40,476,285,16,5664,15],"class_list":["post-1151873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-immigration","tag-inflation","tag-politics","tag-uk","tag-unemployment","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117105405108703904","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1151873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1151874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1151873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1151873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1151873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}