Blacks Crushed By Immigrant Job Juggernaut

Employers hired workers at a surprisingly strong clip in March. The headlines spoke of a 180,000 gain in payrolls, but the "other" job survey based on households rather than businesses revealed an even more robust gain: 335,000 employees for the month. [Bureau of Labor Statistics, "The Employment Situation: March 2007," April 6, 2007 PDF]

Here is the March job story by racial group:

Total employment: +335,000 (+0.23%)

Hispanic: +84,000 (+0.42%)

Non-Hispanic: +251,000 (+0.20%)

White: +446,000 (+0.37%)

Black: -166,000 (-1.03%)

In other words, in percentage terms, Hispanic job growth was more than twice that of non-Hispanics. (Some 40 percent of Hispanics are foreign born, so they are a good proxy for the displacement of American workers by immigrants.) The Hispanicization of the U.S. workforce is happening, of course, because immigrants are cheaper than U.S.-born workers. Many are paid "off the books" freeing their employers of the onerous burden of payroll taxes and unemployment compensation.