Trump Sparks Domestic Labor Renaissance: Native-Born Workers Surge To Record High As Foreign-Born Plunge

There were plenty of good details to report in today’s jobs report: the unexpected surge in monthly jobs (which came almost above the top of the forecast range), the drop in unemployment, the moderation in hourly earnings, the continued loss of federal workers, the jump in full-time jobs and the drop in part-time jobs.

There were also several not so good aspects: first and foremost, the narrow breadth in hiring, with most job growth in June the result of Education and Health services (+51K), and Government (+73), which are government, or government-linked, sectors. 

As Soutbay Research put it, the June Payrolls were derived from two sources: Healthcare (+59K) and Public Schools (+64K).  

• Public Schools: Summer break layoffs were understated in the June release.  Either the July revision brings them down OR the July Public Education payrolls go deeply negative.  
  • July Best Case: June comes down ~40K and Public Education is flat in July
  • July Worst Case: July Public Education payrolls are -40K

On the other end, private sector payrolls were soft: excluding healthcare, Southbay says to expect the Private Sector to be flat or possibly  negative.

Meanwhile, even though it was not yet captured by the jobs report, there has been plenty of firing, with the best examples being Intel and Microsoft just announcing a combined 18K in layoffs.

As SouthBay concludes, “only another Hail Mary Seasonal Adjustment can prevent a negative print.”

Another less then stellar aspect of today’s report is that the number of multiple job holders actually soared by 282K, one of the biggest monthly increases on record, and one which pushed the total just shy of a new all time high. 

But while no jobs report is without blemishes, the positives far outweighed the negatives, maybe not so much quantitatively then certainly qualitatively, because as we noted earlier, the most important metric of today’s jobs report is arguably what got Trump elected in the first place.

Recall back in January 2024 we first asked how is it not the biggest political talking point that since 2019, the US had only added foreign-born workers (which as we subsequently showed were primarily illegal aliens) while native workers remained flat or declined.

How is this not the biggest political talking point right now: since October 2019, native-born US workers have lost 1.4 million jobs; over the same period foreign-born workers have gained 3 million jobs. pic.twitter.com/Z5HVWmQ24C

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 15, 2024

Less than a year later, illegal immigration in general, and its impact on the labor market indeed had become the biggest political talking point and one which one can argue got Trump elected. 

So in retrospect, we can report today that Trump has certainly been working hard to resolve the situation and according to today’s job report, the number of native-born workers has taken a decisive step higher, rising to a new all time high while foreign-born workers have been plunging ever since the election. 

Here are the details:

• In June, the US added 830K native-born workers, pushing the total to a new record high of 132.652 million, hopefully ending the stagnant period which started in 2019 which saw zero native-born workers be added to the US labor force.
• At the same time, the US saw 348K foreign-born workers leave, sending the total to a 2025 low of 31.231 million.

Extending the observation window since the start of Trump’s admin (i.e., since March which covers the end of the first full month of the Trump admin), we find an even more impressive result: the number of native born workers has surged by 1.5 million while foreign-born (primarily illegals) have tumbled by 1 million. 

So while one can certainly find warts in the broader jobs report – and with the economy 5 years into its post-covid expansion there better be weaknesses – the one thing that matters more than anything to most Americans, not having to compete with illegal aliens for jobs which not only pushes demand higher but also wages, is one where Trump can certainly say mission accomplished, for now.