Immigrants to drive overall U.S. workforce growth for the next two decades 

Times Squre, New York, Photoby chensiyuan/Wikimedia Commons

With the Baby Boom generation heading toward retirement, growth in the nation’s working-age population, those ages 25 to 64, will be driven by immigrants and the U.S.-born children of immigrants, at least through 2035.

Pew Research Center reports it is necessary that the U.S. keeps taking in immigrants to sustain workforce levels.

“Without immigrants, there would be an estimated 18 million fewer working-age adults in the country in 2035 because of the dearth of U.S.-born children with U.S.-born parents.”

Nevertheless, immigrants do not form a majority of workers in any industry or occupational group, though they form large shares of private household workers (45%) and farming, fishing, and forestry occupations (46%).

According to Pew, Public opinion has turned more positive when it comes to immigrants’ impact on the U.S. workforce.

The share of Americans saying that the growing number of immigrants working in the country helps American workers increased 14 percentage points in the last 10 years, from 28% in 2006 to 42% in 2016, the organization says.

In a detailed account, earlier, the Pew said the arrival of new working-age immigrants at the current rate will be key to maintaining U.S. work force levels over the next two decades, a new Pew Research Center report says.

That is to be mainly driven by the fact that baby boomers – American generation born after World War II  – who provided the bulk of the work force will retire.

The Pew Research findings underscore that without future immigrants, working age population in the United States will decline dramatically – leaving a void in the economic picture.

Numerically, the research organization projects that it will be due to steady arrivals of new immigrants that the American working age population (25-64 years) will grow from 173 million 2015 to 183 million 2035.

The research organization explains that the largest segment of working-age adults – those born in the U.S. whose parents also were born in the U.S. – is projected to decline from 2015 to 2035.

The reduction would be both in numbers and as a share of the working-age population. The projections show a reduction of 8.2 million of these adults, from 128.3 million in 2015 to 120.1 million in 2035, it said.

However, that reduction would be partially offset by an increase in the number of working-age U.S.-born adults with immigrant parents, who are projected to number 24.6 million in 2035, up from 11.1 million in 2015, the Center projects.

“But perhaps the most important component of the growth in the working-age population over the next two decades will be the arrival of future immigrants,” it says.

The Pew projections see the number of working-age immigrants increase from 33.9 million in 2015 to 38.5 million by 2035, with new immigrant arrivals accounting for all of that gain.

The Pew Research Center projections for foreign-born working-age adults are based on current rates of immigration, combining lawful and unauthorized. They assume that two-thirds of immigrants arriving through 2035 will be ages 25 to 64, as is true of today’s new immigrants.

The report also explains that the declining number of U.S.-born working-age adults with U.S.-born parents means that they will become a smaller share of the working-age population: 66% in 2035, compared with 74% in 2015. U.S.-born children of immigrants will make up a growing share of working-age adults: 13% in 2035, compared with 6% in 2015.

On the other hand, the immigrant share of working-age adults will inch up, from 20% in 2015 to 21% in 2035.