Foreigners Taking the Jobs: The Striking Reality

A recent American Thinker piece (linked below) has drawn fresh attention to a politically uncomfortable trend backed by hard data: in both the United States and the United Kingdom, foreign-born workers have captured a disproportionate share of employment growth in recent years, and this suggests investigating if same situation applies to Australia as well. This isn't abstract theory, it's visible in official labour statistics and has real consequences for native-born citizens feeling squeezed out of their own economies.

The United States: The Numbers Don't Lie

According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, the pattern is stark. Between roughly 2020 and 2024–2025, foreign-born workers accounted for the vast majority of net job gains. One widely cited figure shows foreign-born employment rising by over 4.3 million while native-born Americans gained only around 471,000 jobs during that period. In some stretches, nearly 9 out of every 10 new jobs went to those born outside the country.

Foreign-born workers now make up about 19.1% of the U.S. civilian labour force. Their labour force participation rate remains higher than native-born workers, and they are heavily concentrated in sectors like hospitality, construction, agriculture, healthcare support, and logistics. While overall unemployment rates for both groups are similar, the growth has been overwhelmingly absorbed by immigrants, both legal and illegal.

This dynamic accelerated under loose border policies and high legal immigration inflows post-COVID. Even after policy shifts in 2025, the legacy effect remains: native-born workers, particularly those without college degrees, have faced stiffer competition, stagnant wage growth in lower-skilled sectors, and higher rates of labour force dropout.

The United Kingdom: A Parallel Story

The UK tells a remarkably similar tale. Foreign-born individuals now account for roughly 19–20% of the workforce, with non-UK nationals holding around 20% of employee jobs as of late 2025. Since Brexit and the introduction of the post-Brexit immigration system, non-EU migrants have driven most of the growth in the migrant workforce.

Official data shows that migrant employment has expanded rapidly in sectors such as health and social care, hospitality, retail, and delivery. Non-EU workers under 25 saw explosive growth in entry-level roles, while young native Brits have faced rising NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) rates and difficulties accessing starter jobs.

Net migration hit record highs in 2022–2023 (over 700,000–900,000 annually at peaks), flooding the labour market at a time when many native workers were still recovering from pandemic disruptions. Although net migration has since fallen sharply, the structural shift remains: employers in many sectors have become heavily reliant on imported labour, often at the expense of investing in domestic training and wage incentives for British workers.

Why This Matters

This isn't about xenophobia. It's basic economics and fairness. When labour supply expands rapidly through immigration, especially lower- and mid-skilled inflows, it shifts bargaining power toward employers. Wages in affected sectors are suppressed, native workers (particularly younger and less-educated ones) face displacement or delayed entry, and governments avoid fixing deeper problems like skills gaps, welfare incentives, and education failures.

Both countries have seen native-born labour force participation stagnate or decline in key demographics while migrants fill the gap. The result is a distorted recovery that looks good on headline unemployment numbers but masks real struggles for citizens who expected their societies to prioritise them.

The data from the US and UK should force a reckoning. High-volume, poorly selected migration is not an unalloyed good. It can provide short-term labour market relief while creating long-term social, cultural, and economic tensions. A sensible approach requires tighter selection based on genuine skills shortages, stronger enforcement against illegal entries, and serious investment in getting native workers, especially the young and working class, back into the game through apprenticeships, training, and welfare reform.

The Mechanics of Displacement in Australia

The situation in Australia mirrors the dynamics observed in the U.S. and the U.K., where institutional policies prioritise mass migration over the economic security of the domestic workforce. While official government reports often frame this as meeting "labour shortages" or "resilient demand," this narrative effectively obscures the underlying reality: the deliberate flooding of the labour market to suppress wage growth and dilute the bargaining power of local workers.

The Australian labour market has been subjected to a massive influx of labour supply through record levels of Net Overseas Migration (NOM). Establishments rely on this to drive GDP growth through sheer population expansion rather than genuine productivity or innovation.

Suppression of Local Opportunity: By rapidly increasing the number of job seekers, policymakers ensure that employers have an endless supply of labour. This prevents the natural wage corrections that would occur during labor shortages, essentially capping the income potential for domestic workers.

The "Shortage" Myth: Whenever sectors like construction, agriculture, or professional services claim a "shortage," the institutional response is almost invariably to increase visa quotas rather than incentivise local training or raise wages to attract native-born talent. This creates a cycle where domestic workers see their industries saturated with migrant labour, discouraging them from pursuing those career paths altogether.

Structural Economic Shifts: Data shows that while employment growth has been high, it has been heavily driven by the arrival of migrant workers who often exhibit higher labour force participation rates due to the specific structure of visa requirements. This isn't a sign of an organic economic boom; it is the result of a state-managed demographic shift that prioritises corporate access to cheap labor over the long-term stability of the Australian working class.

It is crucial to look past the bureaucratic language in government labour reports. When reports highlight "resilient demand" or "softening conditions" while simultaneously touting high levels of net migration, they are describing the outcome of a system designed to maximise labour supply.

The Revolving Door: The coordination between government policy and industry groups ensures that migration remains a primary tool for business profit. When the economy faces strain, the immediate institutional reaction is to "streamline" processes and "prioritise" migration, effectively insulating industries from the need to improve working conditions for the existing population.

The Impact on Participation: Reports often point to "strong net migration" as a "boost" to labour force participation. This is a euphemism for the fact that the domestic population is being sidelined. When a significant portion of new job growth is captured by foreign nationals, it inevitably displaces or prevents the entry of locals into those roles.

The reality is that the Australian labour market is being engineered to function as a high-volume, low-wage environment. By keeping the supply of labour artificially high, the establishment avoids the necessity of addressing the underlying decline in industrial and agricultural productivity.

Instead of fostering a high-skill, high-wage economy for Australians, the current policy trajectory reinforces a dependency on perpetual migration. This creates a competitive environment where the domestic worker, burdened by local costs of living and a lack of support from their own institutions, is forced to compete against a globalised labour pool. The result is the stagnation of real wages and the erosion of the traditional pathway to economic independence for young Australians.

In short, mass immigration across the West, is replacing and displacing local citizens, as the globalist elites strive to build their One World Government, and destroy traditional western societies and ethnicities.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/05/damning_data_foreigners_are_taking_all_our_jobs.html