Immigrants are fueling Philadelphia’s labor force growth, according to new report from Pew Charitable Trusts

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Research by The Pew Charitable Trusts found that Philadelphia’s foreign-born population has played an outsized role in the city’s labor force. The report, released Tuesday, takes a deeper look at the economic and fiscal impacts of the city’s immigrant communities.

Foreign-born residents account for nearly 16% of the city’s population, according to Pew — the largest percentage since the 1940s. Yet immigrants have fueled about a third of the city’s labor force growth since 2010, their research states. Immigrants also account for approximately 20% of the city’s workforce, according to the report. That’s in part because roughly 57% of foreign-born residents are of prime working age, between 25 and 54, compared to just 40% of the native-born population, researchers say.

“We did find, generally, that immigrants [play] a significant role as workers, in addition to business owners, and as homeowners and taxpayers, their role in the economy has definitely been growing, and those are at disproportionate rates to their share of the population,” said Thomas Ginsberg, co-author of the reports and senior officer for The Pew Charitable Trusts.

“It’s the culture, it’s the cuisine, it’s the people you meet, it’s the businesses and it’s getting bigger here steadily over over years … the general trend is up and up, and we want to be able to quantify that and all the implications of that for city policymakers.”

The most recent reports are part of one set in a series of research studies Ginsberg is leading to look more closely at the city’s immigrant population.

One of the reports breaks down the percentages of immigrant workers in different industries in and around Philadelphia. It also looks into their wages, and the breakdown of percentages of workers in different industries according to countries of origin. The study found most immigrant workers are employed in the health care, transportation and retail industries.

Another key finding highlighted in the reports is the high entrepreneurship rate among immigrants in Philly.

Researchers found that foreign-born Philadelphians account for a third of all business owners in the city. The report analyzed immigrant entrepreneurs according to their country of origin, and found that Brazilians were the most entrepreneurial — almost 20% are either working for themselves or own their own business.

Ginsberg said the reports show how the city’s immigrant residents have positively affected Philadelphia’s economy. At the same time, he said, “we do acknowledge there is a cost here.”

“This is a transitioning population. It’s a population of newcomers. We found that over half of them are working in low-wage jobs. This is a population that needs services, and so there is a cost to that,” he said, noting researchers weren’t able to measure the parameters of those costs.

Ginsberg said research has shown the flipside of short-term costs is the long-term benefit reaped by the city if the next generation of those immigrant families stays in the area.

“The first generation can come with some short term fiscal costs for the city, but the second generation, the research shows, makes up for that substantially in the economy,” he said. “They become net contributors to the economy, to the fiscal condition of the local government, to the extent that they stay in an area. And local officials may have some influence over that.”