2008 Foreign-born Workers: Labor Force Characteristics — 2009-03-26

In 2008, 24.1 million persons, or 15.6 percent of the U.S. civilian labor force age 16 and over, were foreign born, the Bureau of Labor Statis- tics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The unemployment rate for the foreign born was 5.8 percent in 2008, up from 4.3 percent in 2007. The jobless rate of the native born also increased to 5.8 percent in 2008; it was 4.7 percent in the prior year. This news release compares the labor force characteristics of the for- eign born with those of their native-born counterparts. The data on na- tivity are collected as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample survey of approximately 60,000 households. The foreign born are persons who reside in the United States but who were born outside the country or one of its outlying areas to parents who were not U.S. citizens.