A new study of U.S. census data conducted by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University has revealed that over the past ten years, of 16 million new entrants into the U.S. workforce, 8 million were new or recent immigrants. The study found that this influx of new workers, as many as half of them undocumented, accounted for eighty-percent of all new male workers and thirty-percent of all new female workers during the last decade, and prevented widespread shortages of male labor in many areas. While thirty-three-percent of recent immigrant workers in the past decade have entered blue-collar occupations, twenty-five-percent were employed in managerial, technical or professional jobs, further highlighting the reliance of the U.S. economy on immigrant workers who often are not afforded the rights and protections of citizens.
See "Immigrants Account for Half of New Workers; Report Calls Them Increasingly Needed For Economic Growth", D’VERA COHN, The Washington Post, December 1, 2002