Pro-immigration activists frequently deny that newcomers displace native workers. However, some advocates often argue that even if some competition emerges, domestic workers must simply adapt and acquire the necessary skills to compete. Yet a detailed examination of labor market outcomes in both the United Kingdom and the United States reveals a more complex and less optimistic picture. In several regions, immigrants have filled a substantial share of new jobs, employers have reduced training investments in local labor, and older and less mobile native workers have been pushed to the margins of expanding labor markets. At the same time, the fiscal and productivity contributions of migrants vary dramatically by region of origin, with some groups generating very large surpluses and others far smaller ones.
These patterns show that immigration reshapes labor markets in ways that depend heavily on who is arriving and what skills they bring.
The former coalfields of England and Wales provide one of the clearest examples of how large-scale labor inflows shape economic outcomes. Between 2011 and 2021, these regions experienced job growth of 184,000 positions, while the number of non-UK born residents in employment rose by 84,000. Immigrants therefore filled 46 per cent of the decade’s employment expansion. In Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Nottinghamshire, where employment grew most rapidly, foreign-born workers accounted for between 40 and 60 per cent of the increase . These figures reveal that even substantial job creation does not necessarily translate into greater employment opportunities for long-standing residents.
Warehousing contributed more to this expansion than any other industry, adding 44,000 jobs during the period . This growth was propelled by changes in consumer behavior, the rise of online retail, and the availability of flat, developable land on former colliery sites. Importantly, this expansion would have occurred with or without the availability of migrant labor. Warehousing would simply have relied more heavily on native recruitment, higher pay, improved working conditions, or increased automation if foreign workers had not been available. Immigrants did not drive the growth of the sector; they shaped how the sector staffed its expansion.
Furthermore, the claim that these jobs went to immigrants because natives lacked the necessary skills does not stand up to scrutiny. Warehousing depends more on physical capacity, stamina, and flexible scheduling than on technical training or specialized qualifications. In these roles, specific vocational skills mattered less than the ability to work intensively and irregularly. The presence of a large migrant workforce also reduced employers’ incentives to train local workers. Apprenticeship numbers declined sharply during this period as firms elected to rely on foreign-trained labor rather than invest in domestic training systems. This indicates not a shortage of qualified natives, but a shift in employer preferences induced by the ready availability of migrant labor.
Demographic differences further shaped hiring patterns. In the coalfields, more than one-third of UK-born workers were over fifty, compared with only one-fifth of foreign-born workers . Given the physical demands of warehousing, food processing, and basic logistics, employers gravitated toward younger migrant labor. This dynamic contributed to a situation in which many older natives remained disconnected from job growth, even as employment expanded strongly in their immediate surroundings.
The United States exhibits similar patterns in a different segment of the labor market. Following the 1990 Immigration Act, the supply of foreign-born STEM workers increased substantially. Natives responded to this heightened competition by altering their educational and occupational choices. Black male students reduced their likelihood of majoring in STEM fields, white male STEM graduates shifted into non-STEM careers, and white female STEM graduates were more likely to exit the labor force entirely. These outcomes represent clear evidence of crowding-out effects in high-skilled fields and illustrate that even skilled immigration can redirect native talent away from competitive sectors.
Invariably, educational constraints in many developing nations further shape migrant productivity in advanced economies. The global learning crisis leaves large proportions of students unable to master basic literacy and numeracy, while average cognitive performance in several low-income regions falls well below the levels required for high-productivity work in countries like the United Kingdom and the United States. Migrants from these regions therefore face substantial barriers to performing at native levels, and tend to cluster in low-skill sectors such as warehousing, accommodation, food services, and care work, patterns that are clearly visible in the occupational distribution of foreign-born workers in the coalfields.
Fiscal outcomes reflect these disparities in human capital. Migrants from Europe and Asia, who typically have stronger educational backgrounds and higher earnings, generate approximately one million dollars in positive fiscal impact over a 30-year period. In contrast, migrants from Latin America produce a far smaller net contribution, roughly 150,000 dollars over the same horizon. The difference is driven by divergent educational foundations, earning potential, and reliance on public services.
These patterns show that immigration reshapes labor markets in ways that depend heavily on who is arriving and what skills they bring. Migrants from Europe and Asia, who typically possess higher levels of education and stronger cognitive skills, integrate into skilled sectors and generate long-term fiscal surpluses approaching $1 million dollars. Migrants from poorer regions, especially those affected by severe learning deficits and lower average cognitive performance, seldom match native productivity and are disproportionately concentrated in low-wage jobs.
The economic effects of immigration therefore hinge not on abstract principles but on the concrete human-capital characteristics of different migrant groups. Immigration is not a uniform phenomenon, and migrants from low-performing educational systems are structurally less likely to compete with natives in high-value roles or generate the same level of economic benefit.
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