The 4.1% jobless rate is now a composition story, not a stability story

Census Bureau data released in January put net international migration at an estimated 321,000 by mid-2026, down from a 2024 peak of 2.7 million ^[1], while Brookings says the figure could turn negative this year ^[2]. The headline unemployment rate has held at 4.1% through that shift ^[3], and economists have told Fortune that a shrinking labor force is part of why the rate has looked stable while labor demand fell ^[4].

The composition underneath has moved. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's, says foreign-born unemployment fell below native-born unemployment in October 2025, using a 12-month moving average of seasonally unadjusted data ^[5]. Half of that crossover is arithmetic: Zandi told Fortune the immigrant labor force is shrinking because of White House policy, which mechanically lowers measured unemployment for that group ^[6]. The other half is the part that belongs in hiring plans. Native-born unemployment is rising ^[7], and Zandi attributes that mostly to weaker labor demand generally, amplified because US-born workers now make up a larger share of the labor force and so absorb more of any demand change ^[8]. Fortune's reporting frames the combination as rising US-born unemployment alongside stalling wage growth ^[9].

That runs against the premise. The 2024 pitch was that removing immigrants who were "taking jobs from American workers and driving down their wages" would restore the American Dream ^[10].

The substitution has not happened cleanly because the jobs are not interchangeable. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says foreign-born workers in 2025 were more likely than native-born workers to be employed in construction, trucking, natural resources, and health and personal care ^[11], and that immigrants' median weekly earnings as full-time wage and salary workers are 85.7% of their native-born counterparts' ^[12], a gap of 14.3 percentage points ^[13]. Zandi's read is that the clearing price does not work: native-born workers "would take them, but it would require much, much higher wages ... [and that] would make it uneconomic for the businesses to actually produce whatever it is they're doing" ^[14]. He also cites a skills and awareness lag in roles held by immigrants for decades ^[15], and non-wage barriers including remote locations where housing, amenities and services are thin ^[16].

The White House disputes the framing. Spokesman Kush Desai told Fortune that enforcement has lifted real wages in construction, manufacturing, transportation and warehousing "by leaps and bounds compared to overall wage growth" and that "President Trump is delivering" ^[17]. The New York Fed did report in May that public administration and the construction and mining industries have seen wage growth, partly on demand tied to AI data center construction ^[18]. Note the attribution in that last clause: data center capex is not immigration policy, and it is doing some of the work in the sectors cited as evidence.

For operators, the practical point is that 4.1% is now a blend of two diverging series ^[3][5][7], which means it is a weaker signal about your applicant flow than it was two years ago. Watch whether Zandi's crossover persists in later 12-month averages ^[5], whether wage growth broadens beyond construction, mining and public administration ^[18], and whether Brookings is right that net migration goes negative ^[2]. If native-born unemployment keeps rising while the headline rate stays flat, the useful number is not the rate but your own time-to-fill in the arduous, remote and low-paid roles that immigrant workers have been filling ^[11][16].