Fmr. Obama Official Rattner: Lack of Immigration Isn't Hurting Job Market, There’s No Shortage

During an interview aired on Friday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Wall Street Week,” Steve Rattner, who served as counselor to the Treasury Secretary in the Obama administration, said that while he wants more immigration, those who are arguing that a lack of immigration is hurting the job market are wrong, and “when you look at CEOs on their quarterly earnings calls, they’re not saying it’s hard to find people. Nobody is saying that at the moment.”

Rattner said that there are concerns with the labor market.

Host David Westin asked, “How does immigration factor into the labor market at this point, if at all? We obviously don’t have the same immigration coming in, and there are some reports that people actually may be leaving the country. Is that affecting the labor market?”

Rattner answered, “I’m a bit of a contrarian on this. The narrative is, yes, it’s affecting the labor market, and, particularly from people who are pro-immigration, they say, see, see, we’ve got to have more immigration. And I’m in favor of more immigration, but it’s very hard, at the moment, to see a lack of immigration as the reason here. You have labor force participation going down. You have the number of job openings going down. You have the number of — the unemployment rate going up. So, you have a whole bunch of other things that suggest that this is just a very loose jobs market. And, also, when you look at CEOs on their quarterly earnings calls, they’re not saying it’s hard to find people. Nobody is saying that at the moment. They’re, in fact, talking about how many people they’re cutting.”

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