Oregon Industries Could Face Uneven Strain as U.S.-Born Workforce Shrinks and Immigrant Workforce Grows

With January employment data indicating that the nationwide US-born workforce is shrinking while the foreign-born workforce grows,

Oregon’s labor market, with a larger-than-average share of migratory workers concentrated in sectors like manufacturing and agriculture, could mean that national swings in immigrant employment will hit Oregon industries unevenly.

Federal Data And Demographics Of Oregon’s Workforce

In a recent post on the social media platform X, MacroEdge shared what it called “bizarre” national January employment details:

• The US-born workforce fell by 1.195 million.
• The foreign-born workforce grew by 565,000.

This suggests that foreign-born workers have higher labor force participation than native born workers.

Because several of Oregon’s sectors, like manufacturing and agriculture, have an immigrant-heavy workforce, the state’s labor market data shows immigrants are a bigger-than-population share of the workforce.

As a result, national swings in immigrant employment can hit Oregon industries unevenly. The new data comes after Oregon’s unemployment rate hit 5.2% as the state fell to the 47th worst in the nation in November.

The U.S. unemployment rate was 4.6% in the same month.

For January 2026, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) table A-7 shows that the participation rate was foreign born 66.7% vs native born 61.2%. In numbers, the agency indicated that there are 31,677K foreign born workers compared with 131,413K native born workers.

In Oregon, research indicates that the ACS 2022 five-year estimates showed that just over 13% of the workforce in Oregon was foreign-born.

Here is where foreign born workers are most concentrated in Oregon industries:

In industries reliant on immigrant labor, over 17% of foreign-born workers were in manufacturing, and more than 6% were in agriculture. These industries reflected native workers as just over 2%.