Two Labor Market Stories, One Trend Line: Fewer Foreign-Born Workers, More Temp Jobs

Two numbers tell two different stories about the American labor market right now.

First: temporary help services has been one of the strongest job-growth categories in the country this year. According to Fortune, out of more than 300 industries tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, temp staffing added the second-highest number of jobs in 2026, including 3,400 in July alone. Fortune's source, Noah Yosif, chief economist at the American Staffing Association, says roughly one in ten jobs created this year has been a temporary position.

Second: the foreign-born labor force shrank sharply. According to Department of Labor data reported by Breitbart, the number of foreign-born people in the labor force fell by 700,000 between June 2025 and June 2026, from 32.6 million to 31.9 million. The foreign-born civilian population dropped by 571,000, and the foreign-born share of the total labor force slipped from about 19.0% to 18.7%.

Both of those are real, sourced numbers. What's not established by either report is that one caused the other.

What's actually driving the temp boom

Yosif's argument, as ASA's chief economist, is that the temp surge is being driven by two forces meeting in the middle: young workers and employers, both hedging their bets.

On the worker side, Yosif points to BLS data showing that in 2023, adults under 24 were four times more likely than prime-age workers, and six times more likely than older workers, to hold contingent jobs. A 2025 ASA-i360 survey found 40% of temp workers were between 18 and 29. Yosif frames this as generational: younger workers don't want to bet their economic security on one employer, and temp work lets them stack multiple gigs or test the market before committing.

On the employer side, Yosif says companies are turning to project-based hiring to limit costs and avoid another episode of over-hiring like the Great Reshuffle, citing rising inflation and economic uncertainty. He notes demand for temp workers is climbing in construction, transportation, professional services, healthcare, and government, not because those sectors suddenly love contract work, but because employers want the flexibility to scale up or down fast.

Fortune's piece does not connect the temp boom to immigration enforcement or the shrinking foreign-born labor force. The temp surge reflects risk aversion on both sides of the hiring table.

What the immigration numbers actually show

Breitbart's reporting, drawing on Department of Labor data, documents a genuine reversal from the Biden-era trend of rapid foreign-born labor force growth. The breakdown by sex is the most striking part: foreign-born male employment fell by 812,000 over the year, while foreign-born female employment rose by 305,000. Native-born male employment also declined, by 962,000, while native-born female employment rose by 308,000.

Breitbart frames this shift as a sign that President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration is reshaping the composition of the U.S. labor market, and argues it's a positive development for American workers because employers will now have to compete harder for domestic labor and invest more in retention and productivity.

The underlying data on foreign-born labor force decline is straightforward Department of Labor reporting. But Breitbart's own report acknowledges an important limitation: the data "do not make distinctions between illegal immigrants, recent immigrants, temporary visa holders, longer-term legal immigrants, and naturalized citizens." All are lumped together as "foreign born." That means the 700,000 drop can't be cleanly attributed to enforcement actions against illegal immigration specifically. It could include naturalized citizens leaving the workforce, work-visa holders whose status changed, or other factors the topline number doesn't isolate.

A fair skeptic of the enforcement-driven framing would note that native-born labor force participation also fell over the same period, by 445,000. Breitbart itself attributes this mostly to retirements, not policy. Both native and foreign-born labor force numbers moved down, which complicates a straightforward "Trump policy shrank foreign labor, Americans are filling the gap" narrative.

Two trends, no proven link

Neither source claims the temp-job surge and the foreign-born labor force decline are connected. What's documented: temp staffing is growing for reasons tied to generational work preferences and employer risk management, according to ASA's Yosif. Separately, the foreign-born labor force shrank by 700,000 over the past year, according to Department of Labor data. Whether those two facts intersect at all is an open question neither report answers. The data limitations on immigration status make a tidy causal story difficult to prove either way.

Future BLS jobs reports will show whether the foreign-born labor force decline continues and whether temp hiring keeps climbing in the same sectors Yosif flagged: construction, transportation, healthcare, and government.