Missing Workers and Labor Market TightnessWe first measure the amount of missing immigrant workers by using the aggregate trend of the number of non-US citizen workers in the labor force. Thus, missing workers equals predicted workers minus actual workers. Simple CounterfactualWhat would have been the impact on the aggregate vacancy-to-unemployment ratio if we were to add back in the missing immigrant workers? So, adding back in the missing immigrant workers has only a small impact on the vacancy-to-unemployment ratio. One notable exception is the food services industry, which had the largest increase in its vacancy-to-unemployment ratio and a large share of missing workers.

Source: New York Times September 15, 2023 15:08 UTC