Our Work

Always remembered for Fisk’s 12th-inning, Game 6 home run, the ’75 Series marks its 50th anniversary this fall. That year’s Red Sox roster, with two international players (ace Luis Tiant and middle-reliever Diego Segui, both Cuban-born), exactly mirrored the majors’ 92% U.S./Puerto Rican composition. The Big Red Machine – 20% international, 80% U.S.-born — was more like a 21st-century team, starting Dominican centerfielder Cesar Geronimo, Cuban first baseman Tony Perez, and Venezuelan shortstop Dave Concepcion, with reliever Pedro Borbon in the bullpen and Bahamian Ed Armbrister as a reserve outfielder.

A half-century later, MLB rosters have diversified and internationalized. They’re now 74% U.S.- and Puerto Rican-born, and 26% international. The leagues’ main recruiting spots outside the U.S. are still mainly on the Caribbean littoral — a hundred players from the DR and 63 from Venezuela; 20 from Cuba, 60 from everywhere else — but go deeper into Mexico and Canada, and also draw from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. A rundown:

* An odd number, as it includes players on the DL.
**  Includes 16 Puerto Rican players, puzzlingly termed ‘international’ by MLB. 

To pull back a bit: Overall, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May Labor Characteristics of the Foreign-Born Workforce release finds 161.3 million people working here in 2024, including 130.9 million “native-born” workers and 30.9 million “foreign-born” workers. (BLS defines ‘foreign-born’ as the total number of “legally-admitted immigrants, refugees, temporary residents such as students and temporary workers, and undocumented immigrants”.)  This would mean 19.2% of workers were born abroad. In context, this is slightly below the average for wealthy western countries: the International Labour Organization’s most recent estimate says that as of 2022 in “North America’s” (meaning in ILO geography the U.S. and Canada only), immigrants make up 22.6% of the workforce, a bit less than the 23.3% share in western Europe.

Looked at more closely, BLS’ “foreign-born” stats have immigrant labor shares highest in physically demanding hourly-wage work — construction, groundskeeping, nannies and maids, hired farmhands — and also high in top-end glamor jobs from pro sports to science labs and movie studios. The lowest shares show up in middle- and upper-middle income positions: company managers, health care providers, lawyers and paralegals, teachers, and so on. A sample list, with figures from 2025 or the most recent available year:

Bureau of Labor Statistics for all workers, National Science Foundation for engineering and science workers; Motion Picture Academy for Oscar nominations (counting individuals rather than groups and collaborations); official stats from MLB, NBA, WNBA, and MLS, plus outside writers on hockey and football for pro athletes.

With this in the background, baseball has evolved in parallel with the U.S. generally. Like their top-of-the-economy peers in Hollywood and science, MLB teams now draw from a larger talent pool — this year’s top-ten home-run list features six Americans, two Dominicans, a Venezuelan, and Babe Ruth-like pitcher/slugger Shohei Ohtani — and probably have a higher overall quality of play. U.S.-born players, on the other hand, faced more competition to get their roster slots. It’s probably a mistake to draw too many big-picture lessons or policy ideas from this, but see below for some data on America’s larger workforce trends, and comparisons from the other five big leagues. Coda first, though, for those who weren’t watching in July:

The 2025 All-Star game ended with a six-player “home run swing-off” tiebreaker pitting the National League’s two Americans and a Venezuelan — Kyle Schwarber, Kyle Stowers, and Suarez — against a Cuban-American-Mexican AL trio. (Arozeranda, Rooker, and Aranda.) Ohio native and Indiana University grad Schwarber won it for the NL with a flawless 3-for-3 — three swings, three home runs — at-bat. Not quite Fisk’s 1975 drama, but still pretty good.

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

Baseball: 

The Opening Day rosters featured 245 international players, making up 26.5% of the 953 players out on the grass in the sun, riding the bench, or gloomily parked on the DL.

… Now: July’s All-Star rosters.

… Then: MLB’s ’75 Series retrospective, plus the Baseball Almanac’s count of that year’s international players.

… Tomorrow: The Dominican Summer League’s next-generation talent.

And the Society for American Baseball Research has a backstory on Cuban and Dominican baseball.

Some more close-ups:

Hollywood’s 2025 Oscar nominees.

The 2024 Nobel Prizes.

USDA’s look at America’s 1.17 million hired farmworkers.

And the National Science Foundation on the sci/tech workforce.

Worldwide perspective:

The International Labor Organization estimates 155.6 million “international migrant” workers as of 2022. That would be 4.7%, or one in every 20, of the world’s 3.3 billion workers. The lowest foreign-born rates are 0.7% in North Africa and 3.7% in East Asia; the highest, in the Persian Gulf monarchies, are above 50%. As above, the U.S.’ 19.2% appears to be a bit below the Canadian and European figures.

American big picture:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ most recent Labor Characteristics of the Foreign-Born Workforce brief, out last May, with figures for 2024.

A trawl through this report’s back issues (available online to 2003) finds two big trends.  One, the “foreign-born” worker share has been rising over time and especially fast in recent years – from the 14.5% share of in 2004, to 16.6% a decade later in 2014, 17.2% in 2021, and last year’s 19.2% – both through both high levels of immigration and the aging of the native-born workforce. (About 4 million Americans retire each year.) And two, foreign-born workers have grown relatively more educated over time — 56% now have “some college” or “BA or higher,” as against 37% in 2004 — meaning the “smile” curve may be flattening out. The Trump administration’s deportation campaign has very likely slowed the first trend — fewer foreign-born maids, groundskeepers, construction crews, and farm hands — and accelerated the second.

And around the leagues:

NBA: If MLB’s scouts spend their road time on Caribbean beaches or in Japan, their basketball counterparts draw more from a more global pool with a European focus. The National Basketball Association’s 2024-2025 season was 28.0% international with 21 Canadian players, 14 French, 13 Australians, 6 Serbs, and a record 5 from Cameroon.

WNBA: The Women’s National Basketball Association, meanwhile, features 41 international players on this season’s 173 roster spots, for a slightly lower 23.6%. DC’s Mystics play Australian guards Georgia Amoore and Jade Melbourne, along with forwards Sika Kone and Aaliyah Edwards, who are respectively from Mali and Canada.

MLS: Majority-international Major League Soccer has so much available foreign talent that it has an “International Rule” capping international players at 241 of the league’s 852 slots. Kind of a squishy rule, though, as it declares Canadians “domestic” to get a North American 50.1% majority player share.

NFL: The least “international” among the big leagues, the National Football League also seems to be the least analyst-friendly, as we haven’t found an up-to-date list of international players. Their 2023 list reported 88 international players with “at least one snap” in 2022. Much like MLB dubiously counts Puerto Ricans as “international,” the NFL’s “international list” includes 7 U.S. citizens from American Samoa. (They also recruit in the independent Republic of Samoa.) The other top sources are 22 Canadians, 19 Nigerians, and 7 Australians.

NHL: The “nation” in National Hockey League is not the U.S. but Canada, even if most of the rinks are now south of the 49th Parallel and won’t freeze even in March without artificial help. The NHL’s 712 players last year included 291 Canadians, 204 Americans, 216 Europeans (topped by Swedes, with Russia and Finland next), and one Aussie.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

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