Collapsing Immigration Makes US Jobs Data Harder to Read for Fed

A sharp decline in immigration is keeping a lid on the unemployment rate even as the economy slows.

Government data out Friday showed the size of the workforce shrunk in May, in part because of the biggest back-to-back decline in the number of foreign-born workers in the labor force since 2020. That left the jobless rate unchanged at 4.2% even as the number of people out of work rose.

With President Donald Trump stepping up his deportation efforts and curbing legal immigration, the outlook is for a smaller labor force, which may in turn limit the measured rise in ...