A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies finds, while Florida has been among the states with the most job growth, much of the increase has gone to immigrants, legal and illegal.
And even though the state ranked high in employment growth, Florida still ranked 34th in 2014 in terms of the labor force participation of its native-born population (16 to 65).
Since 2000, immigrants accounted for 52 percent of the net increase in employment among the working age (16 to 65), while accounting for only 33 percent of population growth.
Meanwhile, the labor force participation rate of Florida’s working-age natives have fallen significantly since 2000 and remains low relative to other states, the study found. Two million working-age natives were not working (unemployed or out of the labor market entirely); by 2014 it was nearly 3.3 million — a 62 percent increase.
However, despite these long-term trends, both of Florida’s senators supported the Gang of Eight bill, which would roughly double legal immigration as well as grant legal status to illegal immigrants. In fact, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio was one of the bill’s chief architects. However, the employment picture for Florida’s native-born population continues to look bleak.
“[E]mployment data for the state do not support the idea that workers are in short supply,” the study states. “In the future Florida’s political leaders should at least consider the employment situation in their state before supporting calls for significantly increasing the number of foreign workers allowed into the country.”
