Nobody really knows how foreign-born worker totals have changed since December 2024. What about the long view – the entire four years through 2028?

The Administration aims to drive out both unauthorized workers, who in 2024 numbered around 8 million, and workers on humanitarian authorization, whose labor force numbered in late 2024 around one million. So where does that leave total labor force projections for the entire 2025-2028 term? My estimate: NO INCREASE. The labor force in December 2028 will be roughly what it was in December 2024 – around 170 million.

Calculations

Assume that, say, by 2028, three million of unauthorized (8 million in Dec 2024) and all humanitarian program authorized workers (one million in Dec 204) are lost. Legal permanent immigration adds about 600,000 workers a year. (Assume that the administration does not cut that back.)  The native-born labor force grows very slowly. In the year 2024, it barely changed – perhaps grew by 100,000. Looking forward, the native born workforce is projected to remain flat or even decline due to long term demographic trends.

Putting these estimates together, the combined estimate is a reduction, at best no change, in total workforce from 2024 through 2028 –i.e. during the Trump term of office.

The math

Negative 3 million, positive 600,000 x 4 = 2.4 million, and zero increase in native born workers. This comes to a decline of 600,000 during the Trump Administration.  Prudent to assume it will simply not increase if the immigration goals of the administration are met.

I estimated on July 15 that by June 2025 there has been a reduction of at least one million foreign-born workers through June 2025 due to immigration law enforcement. I thought it was reasonable to estimate a reduction of at least 3 million foreign born workers by 2027 if the pace of enforcement stays where it is now.

In late August, Pew Research, the Wall Street Journal and Forbes all pointed to a decline foreign born workers, roughly consistent with my analysis.

Pew Research wrote that 19% of the U.S. labor force were immigrants, down from 20% and by over 750,000 workers since January.

The WSJ, citing DHS figures, wrote that 1.6 million “illegal” persons left the country in the first 200 days of the year (that would be July 19). Since DHS includes as “illegal” persons here on temporary authorized papers, it’s not clear if how many were from the approximately 11-12 million unauthorized persons. Using a workforce ratio of 70% (higher than native born) this suggests a loss of a little over one million workers.

However, my and the other estimates may have overstated the intra-year downward change in foreign-born workers.

Jed Kolko, who knows his federal labor force and employment data methods, cautions against estimates of both high decline in total foreign-born, total unauthorized, and native born employment in January-July of 2025. He shows how intra-year estimates of labor force and employment numbers are fraught with methodological traps.