Immigrants displacing young labor?

A new study suggests immigrants, especially the undocumented, are displacing the nation's teenage and young adult workers.

Paul Herrington, co-author of the report, says the findings refute other studies that have suggested as baby boomers retire, an influx of immigrants will be needed to fill the labor gaps.

However, critics of the study say it fails to look at the full picture of the nation's economy and labor needs.

The number of U.S.-born workers age 16 to 34 plummeted by more than 1.5 million between 2000 and 2005, according to the report released this past week by the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports lower levels of immigration.

The numbers were even more pronounced among teenagers. The percentage of 16- to 19-year-old males in the work force dropped from 46 percent to 36 percent over five years, while the percentage of working women in that age group dropped from 47 percent to 40 percent.

"Over that period of time the number of males in that age group actually rose," Herrington said. "Employment went down by a fifth. It's not because there's fewer of them out there, but there's fewer at work."

Herrington's study found that in 2005, the percentage of teenage males in the work force was the lowest in the 58-year history of the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey teen employment series.

"Overall, nearly 90 percent of the native-born teen and young adult job deficit that has emerged over the last five years would be eliminated if native-born teens and young adults worked in jobs now held by recent immigrants," the study said.

But Benjamin Johnson, director of the Immigration Policy Center, dedicated to research and analysis of immigrants' contributions, said the study was far from conclusive and targeted a small segment of the work force.

"This has been going on for 20 years," Johnson said of the declining number of young workers. "I don't think it can be explained away by immigration. It may be a sign these folks are pursuing more kinds of opportunities, educational and otherwise."

Johnson said there are "no consistent patterns" to show that immigrants are driving out U.S.-born workers, and immigrants tend to be concentrated in industries, such as agriculture, that have fewer U.S.-born workers.

A recent Pew Hispanic Center study suggests that a region's economy has a greater influence on the U.S.-born work force than does an influx of immigrants.