Labor Force Characteristics of Foreign-born Workers News Release
The unemployment rate for the foreign born in the United States was 4.2 percent in 2025, unchanged from a year earlier, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The jobless rate of the native born was 4.3 percent in 2025, up from 4.0 percent in 2024.
Data on nativity are collected as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample survey of approximately 60,000 households. The foreign born are people who reside in the United States but who were not U.S. citizens at birth. Specifically, they were born outside the United States (or one of its outlying areas such as Puerto Rico or Guam), and neither parent was a U.S. citizen. The foreign born include legally-admitted immigrants, refugees, temporary residents such as students and temporary workers, and undocumented immigrants. However, the survey does not separately identify people in these categories. For further information about the survey, see the Technical Note in this news release.
Highlights from the 2025 data:
--From 2024 to 2025, the unemployment rate of the foreign born remained at 4.2 percent, while the jobless rate for the native born increased to 4.3 percent. (See table 1.)
--In 2025, the foreign born accounted for 19.1 percent of the U.S. civilian labor force. (See table 1.)
--People who are of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity accounted for nearly one-half (47.3 percent) of the foreign-born labor force in 2025, and those who are Asian accounted for about one-quarter (25.9 percent). (See table 1.) (Data in this news release for people who are White, Black or African American, or Asian do not include those of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. Data on people of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity are presented separately.)
--Foreign-born men continued to participate in the labor force at a considerably higher rate in 2025 (76.9 percent) than their native-born counterparts (65.8 percent). By contrast, 56.2 percent of foreign-born women were labor force participants, lower than the participation rate of 57.5 percent for native-born women. (See table 1.)
--In 2025, foreign-born workers were more likely than native-born workers to be employed in service occupations; natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations; and production, transportation, and material moving occupations. Foreign-born workers were less likely than native-born workers to be employed in management, professional, and related occupations, and in sales and office occupations. (See table 4.)
--The median usual weekly earnings of foreign-born full-time wage and salary workers were $1,059 in 2025, compared with $1,236 for their native-born counterparts. (See table 5.) (Differences in earnings reflect a variety of factors, including variations in the distributions of foreign-born and native-born workers by educational attainment, occupation, industry, and geographic region.)
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Source: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/forbrn_05192026.pdf