Immigrant employment during the COVID-19 pandemic

The unprecedented decrease in employment between March and April 2020 resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and related government-imposed lockdowns was significantly more severe for immigrants than for the native-born. Immigrants’ larger job loss during this critical early period was due in part to their greater employment in occupations that are more difficult to perform remotely. Unemployment also increased more for immigrants than for the native-born, and the gap in unemployment persisted for immigrant women into 2021. However, by early 2022, the differential impact of the COVID-19 shock on immigrant and native labor market outcomes had effectively disappeared: there is little evidence of longer-term changes in the immigrant-native gaps in employment rate, unemployment rate, or job loss. The COVID-19 shock disrupted the labor market outcomes of immigrants substantially, but with little or no apparent persistence.