---
title: "Americans less concerned than a decade ago over immigrants’ impact on workforce"
description: "Americans’ views about the impact the growing number of immigrants working in the U.S. is having on American workers have softened notably over the past decade."
date: "2016-10-07"
authors:
  - name: "Anna Brown"
    job_title: "Research Methodologist"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/anna-brown/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/10/07/americans-less-concerned-than-a-decade-ago-over-immigrants-impact-on-workforce/"
categories:
  - "Automation"
  - "Business & Workplace"
  - "Economic Conditions"
  - "Immigration & Economy"
  - "Immigration & Migration"
  - "Immigration Attitudes"
---

# Americans less concerned than a decade ago over immigrants’ impact on workforce

[![](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2016/10/FT_16.10.06_ImmigrantWorkers_2.png)](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/10/07/americans-less-concerned-than-a-decade-ago-over-immigrants-impact-on-workforce/ft_16-10-06_immigrantworkers_2/)

Americans’ views about the impact the growing number of immigrants working in the U.S. is having on American workers have softened notably over the past decade, according to a new [Pew Research Center survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2016/10/06/the-state-of-american-jobs/), conducted in association with the Markle Foundation.

The overall population is almost evenly split on whether growing numbers of immigrant workers help or hurt U.S. workers overall: 45% say having more immigrant workers hurts Americans and 42% say this trend helps U.S. workers. (The survey referred to immigrants in general and did not specify whether they were legally permitted or undocumented.)

These attitudes have changed significantly since a 2006 [Pew Research Center survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2006/08/30/american-work-life-is-worsening-but-most-workers-still-content/), which found that 55% of Americans believed that the presence of more immigrant workers hurt U.S. laborers. That figure has since decreased by 10 percentage points.

Additionally, the share of Americans who thought a decade ago that the growing number of immigrants helped workers was 28%, marking a 14-point increase in that positive view.

There is a far wider partisan divide on this question – one that has been hotly debated during the 2016 campaign – than there was 10 years ago. The new poll shows that since 2006, Democrats have moved substantially in the direction of seeing immigrant workers as a plus when it comes to their effect on American worker: Today, about six-in-ten (58%) say that having more immigrant workers helps U.S. jobholders, up from just 30% who said this in 2006. Over the same time period, Republican opinion has shifted slightly in the opposite direction: Among adults who identify with the GOP, 54% now believe that the growing number of immigrant workers hurts American workers (a 6-point increase since 2006).

Other groups who have come to see immigrant workers more positively include those with less than a high school education, those in households earning less than $30,000 and blacks.

Overall, when Americans are asked what hurts American workers, the top answers are outsourcing jobs to other countries (80% of Americans think this hurts U.S. jobholders), more foreign-made products being sold in the U.S. (77% think this hurts), increased use of contract or temporary employees (57%), automation of jobs (50%) and the decline in union membership (49%).

While there are partisan differences over immigration in this election campaign, fairly strong majorities of Americans have positive views about immigrants, including those who are unauthorized.

An [August poll by Pew Research Center](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/08/25/on-immigration-policy-partisan-differences-but-also-some-common-ground/) showed that 71% of Americans said undocumented immigrants mostly fill jobs that U.S. citizens do not want, while 24% said such immigrants mostly fill jobs citizens would like. And a large majority of adults (76%) said that undocumented immigrants are as honest and hardworking as U.S. citizens.

The U.S. has [44 million immigrants](https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2016/09/20/overall-number-of-u-s-unauthorized-immigrants-holds-steady-since-2009/), more than any other country, that together make up 13.6% of the U.S. population. Three-quarters of them are in the U.S. lawfully or hold U.S. citizenship. The remaining quarter are unauthorized immigrants. The [latest estimates](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/09/21/unauthorized-immigrant-population-stable-for-half-a-decade/) from Pew Research Center show that there were 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants in the country in 2014, a figure that has remained essentially stable since 2009.