alt Hacker News~400k documented/authorized workers leave the US labor market through death (55+) or retirement (Boomers, ~4M/year still retiring) every month. Immigration is down, and net migration was likely close to zero or negative in 2025. Unemployment is relatively low, but there is robust evidence of widespread underemployment and it taking 6-12 months for the unemployed to find jobs. My analysis is that companies are reaching for historical ZIRP era returns in a macro with higher rates (which will likely remain higher with the neutral rate closer to 2.5-3%) through "cost efficiency" whenever possible, by offshoring, nearshoring, and avoiding hiring as long as their systems and processes continue to function "good enough."
Deportations have pushed wages up in some examples (Texas healthcare industry) due to employers having to hire authorized workers to replace undocumented workers who would work for lower wages, but I have not seen broad data on this topic, citations welcome.
The economic metrics are masking a brutal worker economy, being held up by labor shortages (but shortages not yet sufficient to improve labor power), AI capital investment, and healthcare jobs (which will remain durable and in demand due to a rapidly aging US population) is my thesis.
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In terms of just the US part of what's going on, this sounds very accurate.
Deportations are down from my understanding. Most people think deportations are up due to the “shock and awe” ice operations. The current administration, as with prior administrations, has no intentions of actually reducing the amount of cheap labor whether they are undocumented or not.
The main impact is from fewer workers entering the country clandestinely from Mexico due to the current administration’s enforcement of the border and the general impression of immigrants being treated poorly by administration. Illegal border crossings are now at a 50 year low.
I don't really think retiring boomers play the same role in the economy. I think a ~3 million immigrant gap is pretty significant: https://theworlddata.com/net-migration-statistics-in-us/
because the jobs they do enable a lot of BS jobs, go unfilled and actually need to be filled to create other job growth while someone in the labor market for a long time is likely in a comfortable job that will be realized to be unnecessary and already replaced by disruption from newer lower pay equivalents.
(Also GDP is in USD which means it is down 30% in many senses.)
> but there is robust evidence of widespread underemployment and it taking 6-12 months for the unemployed to find jobs
A really ignored aspect of this is that gig work is pretty prevalent once someone loses a stable job. This masks the unemployment with underemployment. There were headlines a while back about booming small business registrations as a sign of a booming economy. Turns out it was just a bunch of people registering businesses so that they can DoorDash