Career Advice & News Center

With 14.6 million Americans currently out of work, many are concerned about the lack of jobs that is plaguing the nation. As a result of the economic crisis, a number of American citizens are looking for answers as to why they have not been able to find employment. It is estimated that more than 8.6 million individuals have been out of work for at least 6 months.

Immigration is one of the most heated debates in society today, with some political parties believing that immigrants are stealing potential jobs from U.S. citizens. However, according to a recent study from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, immigration has no significant effect on the number of jobs that are available to natural-born citizens.

"There is no evidence that immigrants crowd out U.S.-born workers in either the short or long run," Giovanni Peri, an associate professor at the University of California-Davis and a visiting scholar at the San Francisco Fed, said in the study. "Data show that, on net, immigrants expand the U.S. economy's productive capacity, stimulate investment, and promote specialization that in the long run boosts productivity."

The study found that immigrants entering the country make up for 1 percent to the increase in employment, which helps boosts overall incomes by up to 0.9 percent. This equates to immigration pushing wages up $5,100 on average from 1990 to 2007.

According to Bloomberg, this recent study comes following the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke reporting that the hiring market was slowing down, giving an indication that the job market is cooling after having a few months of rapid growth.