Trading places: mobility responses of native- and foreign-born adults to the China trade shock

Previous research finds that the greater geographic mobility of foreign-born workers compared to native-born workers facilitates labor market adjustment to shifting regional economic conditions. The authors examine immigration’s role in enabling US commuting zones to respond to manufacturing job loss caused by import competition from China. Although foreign-born population headcounts fell by a larger proportion than those of the native-born in trade-exposed regions, the contribution of immigration to labor market adjustment in the study period was small. Because most US immigrants arrived in the country after manufacturing regions were already mature, few took jobs in industries that later saw import surges. The foreign-born population share in regions with high trade exposure was only three-fifths that of regions with low trade exposure. Immigration may do more to aid adjustment to cyclical shocks, in which job loss follows recent hiring booms, than to aid adjustment to secular decline, in which hiring booms occurred longer ago.