IMMIGRATION AND COUNTY EMPLOYMENT GROWTH

Prior literature has found that immigrants have no effect on the wages and employment of natives. However, this literature has not accounted for the possibility that immigrants contribute to employment growth i n the areas where they locate. Research on internal migration has foun d that internal migrants contribute to local area employment growth. I n this paper I compare the effects of natives and immigrants on county employment. Results show that the overall immigrant population contri butes more to increases in employment than the overall native populati on. Recent immigrants and recent internal in-movers have similar effec ts on employment growth. The net contribution of immigrants to employm ent growth is confined to nonmanufacturing employment.