Insights for action, for global investors

Don Luskin at Trend Macrolytics points out that the combination of fewer federal workers and President Donald Trump’s enforcement of immigration law means that the total number of hours worked in the U.S. has actually been declining lately. Mr. Luskin writes in a note to clients today:

"Immigration explained something like two thirds of the job gains from mid-2022 through early 2025, and now it has stopped, indeed it has been running to some extent in reverse. Over the last twelve months, it’s probably been responsible for something like 100,000 outright job losses through deportation that went unreplaced by new immigrants, and had to be made up by absorbing new native-born entrants into employment – only about 65,000 per month, given the age demographics."

Yet as Mr. Luskin explains, people who are still working in the U.S. are getting a lot done lately:

"Over the last four quarters, real private sector output is up 3.39%… How is that possible without more people in more jobs working more hours making the economy bigger? How can we be producing so much more honey without more bees? You know the answer – productivity. Productivity = growth in output per hours worked. Fewer hours. More output… Productivity growth over the last four quarters has been 3.44%. The average over the history of the data is 2.25%. With more honey being produced without more bees, individual bees get wealthier."