美国智库Ron Hetrick指出，这是“结构性断层”：多数美国人偏好非体力劳动岗位，但这些岗位长期由移民承担。Bloomberg整理的数据显示，construction and extraction行业外出生劳动力占比由2003年的约22%升至2024年的近36%，food preparation and serving由约22%升至超过25%。Hetrick类比疫情时期：在餐饮娱乐场所重开后，即便工资大幅上升，仍招不到人。根据BLS，2022年初工作空缺曾达12.1 million（约1210万），随后两年持续下降。到2025年底/2026年初，空缺降至2020年以来最低，整体工资增速也在放缓，但依赖移民的construction与traveler accommodation仍有更快工资上升。Steven Camarota（Center for Immigration Studies）认为，长期看移民减少可能推高工资并改善条件、吸引未参与者回流，但25–54岁美国男性劳动力参与率依旧低于90%，并受到健康、犯罪记录等约束；且2025年关税抑制了企业信心与用工需求。
白宫发言人Kush Desai认为，实际工资增长已促使25–54岁群体复工，官媒称其参与率接近25年高点，但更广泛的美国本土出生（16岁及以上）参与率近期下滑，接近2021年低位。文章称，在低生育率与婴儿潮世代退休的背景下，移民是劳动力扩张关键来源；联邦储备银行旧金山研究估计，即便无移民，工作年龄人口可能十年前就开始萎缩，而特朗普执政时期的打击已使2025年25–54岁劳动力增长率减少近1个百分点。过去一年非农就业月均仅新增13,000（约1.3万），失业率从2025年1月的4.0%升至4.4%。Morgan Stanley首席经济学家Michael Gapen警示劳动力萎缩可能形成“速度上限”；即便AI投资与上年减税财政刺激推升2026需求，短缺也将更快显现。Home Builders Institute创始人Ed Brady称，住宅建筑业移民约占劳动力约30%，执法后恐惧导致工地暂时停工并产生连锁效应；在房价高、按揭利率高、总体偏弱的市场里，现场管理者被迫在“高工资聘资深工”与“低薪聘低经验工”间取舍，且一些工地已被迫暂停承接订单。
One year after Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, Bloomberg reports that U.S. net migration in 2025 may have turned negative for the first time in at least 50 years, based on estimates from AEI and Brookings, yet native-born unemployment rose and labor-force participation fell. Mark Regets of the National Foundation for American Policy says immigrant withdrawal from the labor force has not increased jobs for U.S.-born workers, showing a structural mismatch. Government statistics are imperfect in real time, but sectors heavily dependent on immigration—construction, leisure/hospitality, and food production—still report longer hiring times with few domestic applicants despite ongoing losses. Jane Carroll in New York’s Hudson Valley is cited: by early 2025 a job posting brought about 20 applications within 24 hours, now about 5. Her firm usually has five employees but often needs about twice that; pay starts at $20 per hour and is sometimes raised, but higher wages alone do not fill shifts, so margins are being squeezed.
Analysts frame this as a structural rift between preferred job types and manual-labor work. Bloomberg data cited in the article show the foreign-born share in construction and extraction rose from about 22% in 2003 to almost 36% in 2024, while in food preparation and serving it rose from about 22% to over 25%. Ron Hetrick likens today’s situation to the pandemic reopening period, when these jobs saw the highest wage inflation yet remained understaffed. BLS data show total job openings reached 12.1 million in early 2022 and then declined over the next two years. By late 2025/early 2026 openings had fallen to the lowest level since 2020 and wage growth nationally was decelerating, although immigration-dependent sectors such as construction and traveler accommodation still showed faster pay increases. Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies argues that fewer immigrants could eventually raise wages and improve conditions enough to attract some sidelined workers, but male U.S.-born participation in the 25–54 age group remains below 90%, many face obstacles (health, records, etc.), and tariff effects in 2025 likely weakened labor demand.
The White House spokesman Kush Desai argues rising real wages are drawing prime-age Americans back and that participation for ages 25–54 is near a 25-year high. Yet overall participation among U.S.-born workers age 16+ has recently fallen toward its lowest point since 2021. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco study cited in the article estimates that without immigration, the working-age population would likely have started shrinking over a decade ago, and that Trump-era enforcement reduced prime-age labor-force growth by almost one full percentage point in 2025. Nonfarm payrolls averaged only 13,000 jobs per month over the past year, while unemployment rose from 4.0% when Trump took office to 4.4% now. Michael Gapen of Morgan Stanley says the shrinking labor pool can become an economy’s “speed limit.” Even with AI investment and 2025 tax-cut fiscal stimulus, stronger demand in 2026 may quickly expose shortages. Ed Brady of the Home Builders Institute said immigrants are about 30% of residential construction labor; enforcement actions have triggered temporary site closures out of fear, leaving managers in a slow market (high home prices and mortgage rates) to choose between higher pay for experienced workers or hiring less productive novices, and some projects are already being turned away.