Overview

• BLS data for August show foreign-born employment has fallen by nearly one million since January as the economy added just 22,000 jobs and the unemployment rate rose to 4.3%.
• Over the past year, employed foreign-born workers declined by about 822,000 while U.S.-born employment increased by roughly 2.76 million, with unemployment at 4.4% for foreign-born and 4.6% for U.S.-born.
• Homeland Security detained more than 400 workers at a Hyundai plant in Georgia in its largest single-site workplace action, highlighting stepped-up interior enforcement.
• Construction and factory employers report tighter labor supply and operational disruptions tied to workplace raids and fewer new immigrant workers.
• Some analysts caution that survey weighting and provisional population estimates may exaggerate shifts in employment levels, even as wages and productivity have edged higher in recent months.