workingimmigrants.com

The Washington Post has been reporting on the plight of 200 Indian workers who paid recruiters a load of money to be sent to the United States to work – and, per what they were told, be in line for green cards. That proved not to be the case: they were given H-2B 10- month visas to rebuild oil rigs for Signal International. The second case involves a building collapse in New York City causing the death of a worker, Lauro Ortega – who happened to be an illegal immigrant. Workers Comp Insider, one of the best sources of information about work injury issues, has been reporting on the Ortega case, which involves negligence and a heinous attitude by the contractor.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Pew Hispanic Center reports that in the first quarter of this year, the unemployment rate for immigrant Hispanics was 7.5%, compared to all Hispanics at 6.5% and 4.7% for all non-Hispanics. About half – 52.5% -- of all working age Latinos (ages 16 and older) are immigrants.

In recent years the immigrant Hispanic unemployment rate was law compared to all non-immigrant rates, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2006 - 2007. And, not reported in these figures, the labor force participation rate of illegal Hispanic immigrant males was extremely high. (This Pew report does not break out illegal immigrants.)

Much of the unemployment rate increased is attributed to the housing slump. “Mexican immigrants have suffered the effects of the construction downturn most keenly. Latino workers who exited construction in 2007 included about 221,000 immigrants. Some 152,000 of those workers had migrated from Mexico.”

“Labor market outcomes for Hispanic women appear to be worse than for men during 2007. They left the labor force in greater proportion and experienced greater increases in unemployment than did Hispanic men. Some 130,000 more Latino women became unemployed in 2007, and their unemployment rate increased from 5.6% to 7.0%.

“Weekly earnings for most groups of Hispanic workers also slipped backward in the past year. Again, Latino construction workers suffered most from the decline in wages. Their earnings tumbled in 2007 and they now earn less than they did two years ago in the first quarter of 2006.”

The report in full:

Latino Labor Report, 2008: Construction Reverses Job Growth for Latinos

Continue reading "Immigrant Hispanic unemployment rate: 7.5%" »

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 6:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From 2001 to 2006, remittances from the U.S. to Latin America boomed from $15 billion to $45 billion, according to the Inter-American Development Bank. Since then they have barely grown. Why? According to a survey of 5,000 Latin American immigrants reported in the New York Times, “Latino immigrants said life had become more difficult for them here. Of those interviewed, 81 percent said it is harder to find a good-paying job. Almost 40 percent said they were earning less this year than the previous year. The largest group of immigrants in the survey — 18 percent — worked in construction, which has been especially hard hit in the slowdown.

As a result of the difficulties, among immigrants who had been here less than five years, 49 percent said they were thinking of returning home, while 41 percent said they planned to remain in the United States. Over all, slightly under one-third of the immigrants said they were thinking of leaving this country.

In an interview in Phoenix on Wednesday, Yolanda, a 45-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico who did not participate in the survey, said that she had started to think of going home, after 13 years in the United States. Before November, she was sending at least $400 a month to Mexico City to support her three children. This year she can manage only $300 every two months, she said.”

The article in full:

Continue reading "Remittances to Latin America are flat or down" »

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is the second part of NPR’s Morning Edition’s report on the effect of the illegal immigrant crackdown in the U.S. This second of two reports, produced on April 8, recounts the forced return to El Salvador of Omar Giron, who lived in the U.S. for twenty years had left his four children – American citizens – in Virginia. “The upheaval began a year ago with a parking ticket. When Giron went to pay it, a string of convictions for driving under the influence and a domestic violence conviction finally caught up with him. He spent 10 months in jail before being deported to El Salvador.” “Giron interviewed for a job at a call center [in El Salvador], figuring his English would be a big plus. He was told he needed to know more about computers, so he's still looking. But in a country where the United Nations estimates that half the population is either unemployed or underemployed, landing any job is no sure thing.”

The report in full:

When Omar Giron returned to El Salvador — the country he left 20 years ago — it hardly felt like a homecoming. Having lived in the United States for so long, he considers himself American.

Giron and his family fled El Salvador's civil war when he was a teenager. They received protected legal status from U.S. officials. But after repeated run-ins with the law, Giron was stripped of his legal standing and deported last December.

Continue reading "Sent back to El Salvador with its 50% unemployment rate" »

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On April 4 NPR’s All Things Considered ran an interview with Pablo Alvarado. executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, about the effect of the declining economy on demand for day laborers. Alvarado said, ‘, the number of workers in street corners and day labor centers has increased while the number of jobs has decreased. And that has do with the decline in the housing market because the majority of the employers of day laborers are homeowners, and usually, they use some kind of disposable income to hire workers to come and clean their backyards and front yards, do mostly landscaping and small home remodeling projects.”

But he says that illegal immigrants are staying. “Let me put it this way, if you live in Mexico or Central America, you may have your house and you may not have a bed, and you don’t have any bed to sleep, you have to sleep on the floor. But when you come to this country, you may not have a bed either, but at least there’s a carpet where you can lay down and sleep. And just by that, you see the improvement in the quality of life, just that simple example.”

The transcript in full:

Job Opportunities for Day Laborers Decline

April 4, 2008 from All Things Considered

ROBERT SIEGEL, host: What about employment at the lowest levels of the economy? What about those hiring lines of day laborers looking for a few hours of construction work or painting or gardening.

A lot of the people doing that kind of labor are working in the country illegally, and in some jurisdictions they’re facing new policies cracking down on illegal immigration.

What’s the impact of the economic down turn on them?

Pablo Alvarado is executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. He joins us from Los Angeles.

Welcome to the program, Mr. Alvarado.

Mr. PABLO ALVARADO (Executive Director, National Day Laborer Organizing Network): Thank you for having me.

SIEGEL: And first, from what you’ve been able to find out what’s happening on hiring lines at day labor centers?

Mr. ALVARADO: Well, the number of workers in street corners and day labor centers has increased while the number of jobs has decreased. And that has do with the decline in the housing market because the majority of the employers of day laborers are homeowners, and usually, they use some kind of disposable income to hire workers to come and clean their backyards and front yards, do mostly landscaping and small home remodeling projects.

Continue reading "NPR: Jobs for day laborers decline due to housing slump, economy" »

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Possibly no nation has been as deliberate in educating and facilitating the temporary travel of its workforce overseas as has the Philippines. According to this article in the Vancouver Sun, it has 24 overseas labor offices to oversee labor protections of its workers. This article deals with an agreement between British Columbia and the Philippines; three other Canadian provinces already have signed agreements. For B.C, the Philippines is already the third largest source of immigrants.

According to the article, a “joint labour committee with members from both sides….will hammer out specific guidelines for training, certification and assessment of both employees in the Philippines and employers in B.C.”

The article in full:

Continue reading "Philippines and the planned export of labor" »

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 6:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

“Arizona Squeeze On Immigration Angers Business” is the title of a Wall Street Journal article published today. The article tracks the impact of legislation and law enforcement measures against illegal immigrants. The effect of removing illegal workers may have a hugely negative impact on the Arizona economy.

As the article says, “About 500,000 undocumented immigrants live in Arizona, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, and independent estimates suggest about 350,000 of them are working. Immigrants, both legal and illegal, account for 14% of the work force. The state enjoys one of the fastest-growing economies in the nation, and its unemployment rate last year was just 3.3%.

A University of Arizona study released earlier this year concluded that economic output would drop 8.2% annually if noncitizen foreign-born workers were removed from the labor force. Researchers estimate about two-thirds of the workers in that category are in the state illegally.”

The entire article:

Continue reading "Arizona crackdown on illegal workers may hit state economy" »

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ICE made big raids on Swift meatpacking plants in December 2006. I have posted on it several times. Jennifer Ludden of National Public Radio reported on how one Cargill plant, hurting for workers, is recruiting in Puerto Rico for jobs in Illinois. From this report, it appears that replacing illegal workers has not been easy.

Morning Edition, December 6, 2007 · A year ago, immigration agents arrested more than 1,200 illegal workers at Swift meat-packing plants in six states.

The arrests set off a debate about whether immigrants take the grueling jobs away from Americans. Republican presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter said last summer that the day after the raids, Americans were lined up to get their $18-an-hour jobs back.

In reality, the meat-packing plants pay an average hourly rate of $11 or $12 — and no one is lining up to work there.

Many plants, even those that were not raided, must still recruit heavily for legal workers.

In July, a Cargill plant in Beardstown, Ill., began running advertisements in Puerto Rico's capital city, San Juan.

Officials then flew over to conduct interviews there and in four other towns.

Continue reading "After the meatpacking raids: one year later" »

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For 38 countries remittances accounted for more than 10 percent of the gross domestic product. Only about a third of the money, $96 billion, comes from the United States, with large sums also originating in Europe and the Middle East. These and other observations from an article in the New York Times.

The article in full:

THE money flows in dribs and drabs, crossing borders $200 or $300 at a time. It buys cornmeal and rice and plaid private school skirts and keeps the landlord at bay. Globally, the tally is huge: migrants from poor countries send home about $300 billion a year. That is more than three times the global total in foreign aid, making “remittances” the main source of outside money flowing to the developing world.

Surveys show that 80 percent of the money or more is immediately spent, on food, clothing, housing, education or the occasional beer party or television set. Still, there are tens of billions available for savings or investment, in places where capital is scarce. While remittances have been shown to reduce household poverty, policymakers are looking to increase the effect on economic growth.

Some migrants, for instance, send home money to savings accounts at small bank-like microfinance institutions, which use the resulting capital pool to lend to local entrepreneurs.

People who track remittances have been starved for basic data. It is difficult to say exactly how much money is flowing and even harder to say where to, exactly. Sums large and small travel informally, through the mail or in the care of friends. The World Bank, the main tally keeper (in the form of a careful economist named Dilip Ratha), only counts transfers recorded by central banks. Last year’s sum came to $208 billion. Bank officials estimate that the global total is about 50 percent higher — $300 billion or more.

Last month, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, an arm of the United Nations, and the Inter-American Development Bank released a set of numbers culled from additional sources, including private survey data and records of money-transfer companies. (The research was led by Manuel Orozco of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington research group.)

The new study’s estimate of the global total, $301 billion, is about the same as the World Bank’s. But when it comes to specific countries, the two organizations vary widely.

The World Bank, capturing central bank data, said southern African countries received about $1.4 billion in 2006. The new study said $4.5 billion. The World Bank puts Brazil’s intake at $3.5 billion; the new study reports $7.4 billion. Depending which numbers you use, Russia received either $3.3 billion (old) or $13.8 billion (new). The World Bank data has been published annually, while the new study, part of a larger project, has not been widely reviewed.

By any accounting, the amounts involved are big and flow worldwide: migration truly is global. The new study found that 60 countries received $1 billion a year or more last year. In 38 countries, remittances accounted for more than 10 percent of the gross domestic product. Mr. Orozco estimates that only about a third of the money, $96 billion, comes from the United States, with large sums also originating in Europe and the Middle East.

Donald F. Terry, an official at the Inter American Development Bank, which helped sponsor the study, has campaigned for years to publicize the importance of remittances. His policy agenda includes reducing the costs of sending money and helping migrants open bank accounts, especially back home, so they can gain access to mortgages and business loans.

“Putting it out there this way increases the level of policy interest,” Mr. Terry said. “What’s stunning is how critical remittances are in almost every developing country in the world.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 5:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Philip Martin of UC Davis prepared a fresh analysis of labor economics in California’s produce growing industry. He challenges the assertion that there is a labor shortage, which assertion in behind the move to get AgJobs passed by Congress. I have cited Martin’s work in the past. Below is a summary of his new study from the Center for Immigration Studies, which is opposed to granting rights to illegal immigrants.

The study is called Farm Labor Shortages: How Real? What Response?

# Production of fruits and vegetables have been increasing. In particular, plantings of very-labor-intensive crops such as cherries and strawberries have grown by more than 20 percent in just five years.

# The average farm worker makes $9.06 an hour, compared to $16.75 for non-farm production workers.

# Real wages for farm workers increased one-half of one percent (.5%) a year on average between 2000 and 2006. If there were a shortage, wages would be rising much more rapidly.

# Farm worker earnings have risen slower in California and Florida (the states with the most fruit and vegetable production) than in the United States as a whole.

# The average household spends only about $1 a day on fresh fruits and vegetables.

# Labor costs comprise only 6 percent of the price consumers pay for fresh produce. Thus, if farm wages were allowed to rise 40 percent, and if all the costs were passed on to consumers, the cost to the average household would be only about $8 a year.

# Mechanization could offset labor higher labor costs. After the “Bracero” Mexican guestworker program ended in the mid-1960s, farm worker wages rose 40 percent, but consumer prices rose relatively little because the mechanization of some crops dramatically increased productivity.

# Labor-saving mechanization can be difficult for one farmer, since packers and processors are usually set up to deal either with hand-picked or machine-picked crops, but not both. Government has a key role to play in facilitating mechanization.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 7:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to the Migration Policy Institute, remittances to the U.S. were flat in 2006 compared to rapid growth in prior years. The report estimates that remittances were $24.5 billion. The report, like other I posted before, does not break out funds from the U.S., which must be the large majority. The housing turndown in the U.S., which began in 2006, may be the cause of the flat results.

The full report by MPI, available on the website, pinpoints the destination of funds by Mexican state. In a few states, over 10% of the state’s domestic product is remittance money.

The press release:

In “A First Look at the 2007 Slowdown in Remittances”, MPI reported that In 2006, Mexico received an estimated $24.5 billion in remittances -- 11.3 percent of the total $276 billion in remittances worldwide. While migrant remittances to Mexico grew an average of 19.1 percent annually between 2003 and 2006, however, they increased by just 0.6 percent in the first half of 2007 compared to the first half of 2006.

A new MPI fact sheet provides a first look at changes in remittances to Mexico by state for 2003 to 2007, highlighting the states that may be most severely affected by a slowdown in money coming in from migrants abroad in the first six months, or semester, of 2007. The fact sheet, based on Bank of Mexico figures, shows

* Five Mexican states registered more than 5 percent growth in remittances in the first semester of 2007 compared to the first semester of 2006. They are Yucatan (17.8 percent), Guanajuato (12.1 percent), Puebla (9 percent), Baja California (7.9 percent), and Baja California del Sur (7.4 percent). In no case did the growth exceed the growth from January to June of 2006.
* Remittances fell by more than 5 percent in the first semester of 2007 in five states compared to the same period in 2006. They are the Distrito Federal (9.4 percent), Michoacán (6.8 percent), Chiapas (6.0 percent), the State of México (5.6 percent), and Chihuahua (5.2 percent).
* Of the remaining states, 17 had growth of less than 5 percent in remittances in the first semester of 2007 compared to the first semester of 2006 and five states had a decline of less than 5 percent.
* Four states accounted for more than a third of remittances in 2006 and 2007. The states of Michoacán, Guanajuato, Jalisco, and México accounted for more than a third of remittances to Mexico in 2006 and received 36.6 percent of remittances in the first half of 2007. The states receiving the smallest amounts in the first semester of 2006 and the first semester of 2007 included Baja California del Sur, Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Yucatán.
* Some states appear more dependent on remittances than others, the level of which can be seen by comparing a state’s share of remittances to its gross domestic product. Data show that the states of Michoacán, Guerrero, Zacatecas, Oaxaca, Nayarit, and Hidalgo displayed the highest levels of dependency in 2004, the latest year for which state-level GDP data are available. Baja California del Sur, Campeche and Quintana Roo appeared to be the least dependent on remittances due to comparatively low remittance inflows. Distrito Federal, Chihuahua and Nuevo León were less dependent due to comparatively high GDPs.

“While it is still unclear why remittance growth stalled in the first half of this year, if the slowdown continues through the remainder of 2007, it could have real implications for many Mexicans,” said Aaron Matteo Terrazas, an MPI researcher and author of the fact sheet. He continued, “We do know that money migrants send home is a lifeline for many communities, and local policymakers will need to evaluate what a slowdown in remittances might mean for their cities and states.”

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Go to the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange website for its view of working conditions and labor relations.

It identifies itself thusly:

"The Florida Tomato Growers Exchange is an agricultural cooperative of Florida tomato growers who operate as socially accountable farm employers by participating in comprehensive programs that certify employment, health, housing and safety practices. The industry is strongly committed to supporting long-term solutions that improve the lives of their employees."

I have no solid means of verifying their statements but am not inclined to challenge them. I know one of the employers and know him to be a good guy. The Exchange says that its member participate in SAFE – Socially Accountable Farm Employers program, which I have posted on here. SAFE is a model for employer support of labor protections for immigrant agricultural labor.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The number of Hispanic workers in increased in 2006 over 2005, just as it had in prior years. And the growth is particularly noticeable in construction. This is according to a Pew Hispanic Center report issued in March of this year but just come to my attention.

In 2006, there were about 145 million in the workforce. Of these 20 million were Hispanics, up from 18 million in 2004. Much of the growth came from relatively new arrivals (last 2 years) in the United States. In total, they comprised in 2006 13.6% of the industry’s workforce.

The “Latino” labor force added 980,000 workers between 2005 and 2006. “That accounted for 38% of all workers added to the labor force.”

They accounted for two thirds of the 599,000 person growth in construction employment in 2006. About 11.7 million people work in construction. In 2004, Hispanics made up 21% of this total. In 2006, they made up 25%. Of that, 19.1% were foreign born and 7.2% were recent arrivals in the U.S. (last two years). The recent arrival segment has been growing very rapidly.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 3:28 PM | Permalink

The NY Times ran an article which gets into the underbelly of the trafficking of personal identifications for use by illegal immigrants. The article links a worker who was caught up in the Swift raid in Marshalltown, IA in December with a drug addict in Bakersfield, CA. Reportedly, the drug addicted American woman has replaced her social security card twenty times, presumably to sell it.

“Ms. Eloisa Nuñez Galeana said she paid a woman $800 for official copies of Ms. Violeta Blanco's birth certificate and Social Security card.” How Blanco’s papers, by inference sold by her, got into the hands of Nunez is through a lot of hands and possibly multiple uses of them.

Here are excerpts from the article.

Continue reading "Trafficking in identity papers - a case study" »

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 3:05 PM | Permalink

The Atlantic Monthly (subscription required) has an article in its April 2007 edition called “The Mexican Connection.” I have posted on this before (search for “remittance”). The main contribution of this article is to pinpoint the regional sources of many of U.S. based workers -- states immediately northwest of Mexico City: “ Five predominantly rural Mexican states—Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacán, San Luis Potosí, and Zacatecas—send a disproportionately large number of emigrants to the United States. Their links to the U.S. date back a century, to when American mining and railroad companies recruited workers from these regions to offset reductions in Chinese and Japanese immigration. Home to less than a third of Mexico’s population, they receive 44 percent of Mexico’s remittances.”

The Mexican Connection
by Matthew Quirk

Among the crumbling adobe shacks of rural Mexico, two-story California- style housing developments are rising. In the tiny city of Tlacolula, plots of land that sold for about $10,000 in 1994 now cost $60,000. Like the towns where they are going up, the new developments are partly empty. The home owners are among the many Mexican workers—nearly one in seven overall, and half the adult population of some communities, such as La Purísima and San Juan Mixtepec—who are in the United States. Typically working low-wage jobs, they send home much of their pay (41 percent on average, or $300 a month) to support families left behind and build a better life for their return.

Remittances to Mexico exceed $20 billion a year.[Actually $25B – PFR] By 2003, they had become the nation’s second-largest source of external finance, ahead of tourism and foreign investment and just behind oil exports. That same year, then-President Vicente Fox noted that the roughly 20 million Mexican-origin workers in America create a larger gross product than Mexico itself. [This cannot be a correct figures – it is too large. There may be 20 million total Mexican-born people in the U.S. including children. – PFR]

Worldwide, remittances have surpassed direct aid in volume, and international development institutions (along with the governments of many less- developed countries) have recently seized upon them as a key to economic growth in the global South. The United States is the largest source of remittances—Saudi Arabia, with its armies of serflike guest workers, is No. 2—and Mexico the largest recipient of U.S. funds.

Continue reading "Regional sources of Mexican workers in U.S." »

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 7:54 AM | Permalink

The Pew Hispanic Center released a factsheet that examines recent trends in the employment of Latino workers in the U.S. labor market and focuses specifically on the construction industry.

Hispanic workers landed two out of every three new construction jobs in 2006, according to the analysis. They benefited from strong employment growth in the industry even as the housing market endured a year-long slump. Indeed, the construction industry continues to be a key source of jobs for Hispanics and especially for those who are foreign born and recently arrived.

Hispanic employment increased by almost 1 million from 2005 to 2006. Even though Latinos account for only 13.6% of total employment, they accounted for 36.7% of the increase in employment. The comparatively high share of employment reflects demographic changes in the U.S. About 40% of the total increase in the working-age population (16 and older) in 2006 was Hispanic and of these three-fourths are foreign born Latino workers.

Foreign-born Latinos who arrived since 2000 were responsible for about 24% of the total increase in employment in the U.S. labor market last year. Estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center suggest that in recent years about two-thirds of the increase in the employment of recently-arrived Hispanic workers has been due to unauthorized migration.

The estimates in the fact sheet are derived from data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau. Most of the data is from the Current Population Survey, a monthly Census Bureau survey of approximately 60,000 households. Monthly data are combined to create larger sample sizes and to conduct the analysis on either an annual or quarterly basis. The analysis is for 2004-2006.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 3:22 PM | Permalink

Here is the statement, thanks to Jim Platner. I will summarize:

“Mass unregulated illegal immigration into the United States creates unfair wage competition.” There needs to be tougher border enforcement. “A mandatory electronic work-eligibility verification system is needed, which can effectively detect the use of fraudulent documents and significantly reduce the employment of unauthorized immigrants.” This system is “the lynchpin” to comprehensive immigration reform.

A new temporary worker program “would be particularly harmful to the long-term interests of the building and construction industry, because of its negative effect on bona fide apprenticeship and training programs.”

Union sponsored hiring halls and joint labor/management training programs work, and should be supported as the means to provide qualified labor to this industry.

The H-2B visa system in place should be used for foreign labor. This visa program “is currently available to full employers’ temporary needs resulting from either on-time, seasonal, peak load or intermittent labor shortages that do not last for more than one year…it is uniquely appropriate” to fill employer needs in building and construction that cannot otherwise be met be hiring halls.

The H-2B system should be modified to allow for joint labor-management programs to sponsor temporary employment of “trained skilled workers from abroad.” This will assure protection of labor standards of U.S. workers.

There should be a “path to earned legal status” for illegal immigrants here now, as many have been “law-abiding, tax-paying and hard working” participants in the economy. They should pay an appropriate penalty and get in line behind those legally in line from the start. [The term “citizenship” is not used.] Once they “adjust their status”, they should receive federal labor and civil rights protections but not receive federal entitlements.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 9:21 AM | Permalink

Technology advances proceed apace while America is outsourcing jobs to developing countries. These two forces combine to increase the level of migration in the world. Much of this migration is into the U.S. by far the biggest in-migration country in the world. The net effect of this cycle is to improve middle class lives in the U.S. but worsen work prospects for poorly educated Americans.

Robert Feenstra of U.C. at Davis, who has long been a student of economic productivity, made a presentation on “Globalization and its Impact on Labor.” He goes a long way to describing the overwhelming power of forces behind the growth of low wage immigrant labor (including illegal labor) in the United States.

The essence of Feenstra’s story, leavened with information he does not include, is this:

Manufacturing labor in both the U.S. and Mexico have not benefited in the past 10-15 years even while the service workforce has benefited, by capturing the lion’s share of increases in the compensation pie.

This is in part because manufacturing growth in Mexico, expected due to NAFTA, failed to take place except in isolated areas like along the American border (Manquiladora). Thus good manufacturing jobs were not available at anywhere near the numbers needed for the ocuntry's work population. In part, a disproportionate share of economic gains went to service, not manufacturing jobs. The manufacturing sector was also hurt by American and Chinese competition.

Relatively disadvantaged workers in both countries have been making hard decisions on where or if to work. With economic distances expanding between workforce segments, making catch-up less probable, choices narrow down to if and where to migrate.

Mexicans, especially those at the lower end of that country’s education scale, have little prospects of rewards in Mexico and have come to the U.S. to, in effect, make middle class life more comfortable for Americans. Poorly educated American workers have been withdrawing at increasing rates from the workforce, either into part time work, idleness or disability pensions.

Here in the style of Powerpoint bullets, is the story:

One, technology is concentrating economic rewards in the service sector workforce and leaving production (i.e. manufacturing) stagnant. This is happening in developed as well as developing countries – The U.S. as well as Mexico. In the U.S. service workforce relative wages compared to manufacturing wages grew strongly since the mid 1980s.

Two, production jobs in the U.S. are being off-shored and an increasing number of service jobs as well. The next effect is the increase the average compensation of better educated services workers – in both the U.S. AND in the countries providing the off-shored labor.

Three, this offshoring has been responsible for about 1% of the 2.5% – 4% annual productivity growth in the U.S. economy. This is a big deal.

Fourth, in Mexico manufacturing worker wages have not grown appreciatively with NAFTA, which was supposed to set off an economic boom. Feenstra does not discuss farm workers in Mexico, but one gets the impression that both farm and manufacturing wages in Mexico have lagged.

Fifth, there has been a huge transborder shift of workers at the lower end of the wage and education scale.

Mexican labor has moved into the U.S. just as the most vulnerable American workers have been withdrawing from the American workforce. Not addressed by Feenstra, the labor force participation of poorly educated blacks is very low.

Some 70% of the American workforce with less than 8 years of education are foreign born, and 22% of the workforce with 8 to 11 year’ education.

And American workers are heading out the door. The SSDI (disabled worker insurance program) of the U.S. has been growing – very sharply in the past few years. Those exiting the labor market for federal disability pensions are largely manufacturing workers with limited education. In 1995, there were 1.1 million SSDI awards made. In 2004, there were 2.2 million made.

The European Union has sought from the beginning to stem migration from poorer new members by systmatically suppprting infrastructure and manaufacturing growth in the new members.

See Feenstra here.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 4:37 PM | Permalink

Here are important research data on the impact of how foreign born workers hurt some and help other Americans in wages. Note that these figures pertain only to wage impact. They do not address the lower costs of goods and services and greater corporate productivity which immigration and its companion free trade bring

POORLY EDUCATED WORKERS

Ten percent of U.S. born workers have less than a 12 years’ education. Foreign born workers make up 70% of all workers with less than 9th grade education, and 22% of workers with 8-11 years’ education. In these education categories, foreign born workers MARKEDLY DEPRESS wages by about 4%.

HIGH SCHOOL GRADS and "SOME COLLEGE" EDUCATED WORKERS

Eighty percent of U.S. born workers have between 12 and 16 years’ education. Foreign born workers make up 13% of the HS graduate workforce and 10% of the some college work force. (13% of all workers with HS degree, 10% with some college, and about 15% with college degree.)

For the HS graduate and some college workforces, foreign born workers SLIGHTLY INCREASE wages very slightly, by about 1% - 2%

COLLEGE AND MORE EDUCATED WORKERS

Ten percent of U.S. born workers have masters, professional or doctoral degrees. Foreign born workers make up 15%, 18% and 30% of these workforce categories, respectivelly. These foreign born workers MARGINALLY DEPRESS wages, by about 0.2%.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

About 4.9% of the American workforce is made up of illegal workers. Few of them have a HS degree or higher education. They GREATLY DEPRESS wages for all workers with less than a HS degree – by 8% -- and MARGINALLY INCREASE the wages of the more highly educated workforce – by about 1%.

The data come from Table 5 and Figure 8 of a 2/8/07 presentation by Robert Feenstra of U.C. at Davis. he draws from research by Gianmarco Ottaviano and Giovanni Peri, about whom I have posted.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 9:50 AM | Permalink

Let's call this the Home Depot Effect: poorly educated workers compete for jobs, and benefit better educated workers by lowering the cost of goods while stimulating middle class growth.

Following is the abstract of a paper written in 2005 by Gianmarco Ottaviano and Giovanne Peri for the Centre for Economic Policy Research Discussion Paper No. 5226, 2005, (alternative version National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 11672, 2005: "Rethinking the gains from immigration: theory and evidence from the U.S."

Recent influential empirical work has emphasized the negative impact immigrants have on the wages of US-born workers, arguing that immigration harms less educated American workers in particular and all US-born workers in general. Because US and foreign-born workers belong to different skill groups that are imperfectly substitutable, one needs to articulate a production function that aggregates different types of labor (and accounts for complementarity and substitution effects) in order to calculate the various effects of immigrant labor on US-born labor.

We introduce such a production function, making the crucial assumption that US and foreign-born workers with similar education and experience levels may nevertheless be imperfectly substitutable, and allowing for endogenous capital accumulation.

This function successfully accounts for the negative impact of the relative skill levels of immigrants on the relative wages of US workers. However, contrary to the findings of previous literature, overall immigration generates a large positive effect on the average wages of US-born workers. We show evidence of this positive effect by estimating the impact of immigration on both average wages and housing values across US metropolitan areas (1970-2000). We also reproduce this positive effect by simulating the behavior of average wages and housing prices in an open city-economy, with optimizing US-born agents who respond to an inflow of foreign-born workers of the size and composition comparable to the immigration of the 1990s.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 8:57 AM | Permalink

From the abstract of recent study by the Austin TX based research firm of Econone: In this paper we use data from the Mexican Migration Project (MMP) to estimate the number of years a Mexican born foreign worker could reasonably be expected to be employed or seeking employment in the U.S. labor market. We find, consistent with other studies of Mexican migrant workers, that the typical Mexican born worker who migrates to the U.S. to work does not spend their entire working life in the U.S. Our analysis shows the typical Mexican migrant can be expected to be active in the U.S. workforce between 6.1 and 11.1 years on average.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 1:07 PM | Permalink

Thanks to Workers Comp Insider for alerting me to this Insurance Journal article about building contractors who cheat on their workers comp insurance. Why does this matter for immigrant workers? Because employers who cheat on insurance – buying too little, or none at all – are those mostly likely to hire vulnerable immigrant workers and cheat these workers on other labor rights. The news story said nothing about the composition of the workforce, but I bet a lot of the lower skilled work was being performed by immigrant workers. I call this combination of insurance fraud and employer abuses a toxic cocktail that can kill.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 7:47 AM | Permalink

In passing into the second year of workingimmigrants.com, I have compiled some notable entries from the first year -- Peter Rousmaniere

Relative role of U.S. in transborder migration

Number of cities in world with at least one million foreign born residents: 20
Number of these cities in the United States: 8
Number of these cities in India or China: zero
Size of foreign born population in the world today: 200 million out of 6.5 billion (3%)
Size of foreign born population in U.S. Today: 35 million out of 300 million (12%)

Relative role of China in intraborder migration

Number of internal migrants from rural to urban areas in China: 150 million out of total population of 1.2 billion.

Off-shoring of work and the polarization of the American workforce

MIT professor David Autor argues that highly routine mental and manual jobs are being outsourced overseas or eliminated by automation, but that mental and manual jobs involving a level of irregularity in decision making and face to face servicing are growing. This concept explains why some manual jobs are expected to grow in the future along with the growth of high end mental jobs.

Impact of all immigrant workers on American workforce

Share of new jobs 2002 – 2012 to be filled by an immigrant: one out of eight

Size of illegal workforce

Illegal workers in U.S. as of early 2006: about 7.3 million

Illegal workers as % of total U.S. workforce: 4.9%

Illegal workers as % of total U.S. workforce in jobs requiring less than high school degree and without strict documentation requirements: 9/7%

Where do illegal workers work?

Per the Pew Hispanic Center:

Some 55-60% of these undocumented workers are in formal employment and are paying social security taxes

About 3 million of the 7.2 million illegal workers are in occupations in which undocumented workers account for at least 15% of total employment in that occupation. These include construction labor (25%), cooks (20%). Maids and housecleaners (22%), and grounds maintenance (25%). among roofers, 29% of the total workforce is estimated to be undocumented workers.

One half of undocumented working men here are single. But a phenomenal 94% of undocumented men work compared to 83% for native Americans.

Economic impact of illegal population in U.S.

A Texas study says that illegal household payments of consumer and property taxes (via rent or home ownership) exceeds by about 30% the taxpayer burden for education, healthcare, and incarceration.

Do illegal workers displace American workers?

Some say yes, others say no.

It appears that illegal worker compensation is about 30% below what it would be with 100% worker protections afforded to Americans. Go here for a case study.

Waves of Hispanic work immigration since 1980s

1980s: agricultural workers, mostly on farms
1990s: meat processing workers, mostly in rural; towns
2000s: urban work including residential construction: in cities and suburbs

Employment of Indians in the U.S.

They own 20,000 hotels, or 50% of all economy hotels in the U.S.
There are 40,000 Indian physicians in the U.S, or about 4% of all doctors

Role of foreign born entrepreneurs in the U.S.

They are involved in one quarter of all technology start-ups.

Is there a nursing shortage?

Yes.

Percentage of Philippine nurses working outside the Philippines

75%

Foreign nurses in the U.S.

300,000, or about 11% of all nurses.

Percentage of Mexican workforce that is working in the U.S.

16%

Remittances from Mexicans in U.S. to Mexico

$25 billion in 2006

Total remittances from all parts of world to Latin America

$54 billion in 2005

Number of community-based immigrant worker centers

upwards of 200

Foreign day laborers in the U.S.

Estimated number on any particular day:

117,600 at 500 sites in the U.S.

Percentage who speak English very well:

3%

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 7:53 AM | Permalink

The Washington Post reported that “The streets of this small, isolated city in the Texas Panhandle are virtually empty nowadays, and "For Rent" signs decorate dilapidated trailers and shabby 1940s-era military barracks that just weeks ago were full of tenants.” The story relates how the depletion of residents has left two businessmen: a Mexican and a Vietmanese, high and dry.

On Dec. 12, hundreds of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents clad in riot gear and armed with assault rifles descended on the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in a coordinated raid of six of the company's facilities nationwide. The operation was the government's largest single work-site enforcement operation ever. The plant in little Cactus -- a town better known in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, and in the department of Quiché, Guatemala, where workers came from, than in Texas -- was the largest one raided. Almost a quarter of the 1,282 suspected illegal immigrants arrested in the raids were removed from the Cactus plant.

Sales of tortillas and other staples are down. Money wire transactions to Central America have mostly dried up. The "Guatemalas," as local residents call them, are almost all gone, and so are a significant number of Mexican nationals. An estimated 12 to 18 children are now living with only one parent since the other was arrested in a massive immigration raid at the biggest employer in town.

The story goes on:

Continue reading "Another follow up on the Swift raid: what happened to Cactus, TX." »

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 7:35 AM | Permalink

A study of New Jersey asserts that illegal immigrants cost taxpayers $2.1 Billion. A Texas study last year asserted that the burden on taxpayers was $1.2 Billion. New Jersey’s total population is 8.4 million and it estimates its illegal immigrant population at 372,000. Texas in contrast has 20.8 million people of which 1.4 million are estimated to be illegal immigrants. How can New Jersey have almost double the taxpayer burden with less than 40% of the population of illegal immigrants?

And consider this: the New Jersey study authors say it is irrelevant what the contribution of illegal workers make in payroll taxes (yes, many pay payroll taxes) and consumer taxes. Why? Because for every illegal worker there is a legal American sitting on a bench ready to take the job if vacated! This is like saying that the taxpayer burden of red headed left handed persons is so many millions, and it doesn’t matter how much they pay in various taxes. Nor do the authors address a more important question, a step up in complication: what illegal immigrants add to the gross state product. Talk about one-sided accounting!

Per the Pew Hispanic estimates (you will find them on the right column under “undocumented workers by state”) there are 256,000 illegal workers in New Jersey and 1.024 million in Texas (2005 figures).

Go here for the Texas study, which I posted on in December.

The New Jersey study estimates these burdens on taxpayers: schools, $1.85 billion; healthcare $200 million; incarceration, $50 million. The Texas study has these comparable figures: schools, $967 million; healthcare $58 million; incarceration, $130 million.

The Texas study estimates that illegal households pay $867 million in consumption taxes and, per their rental or owned residences, $582 million in property taxes. With other payments, total payments by illegal immigrants into the public fisc are estimated at $1.581 billion, or $424 million higher than the total $1.156 billion burden on taxpayers.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 8:04 PM | Permalink

The Houston Chronicle reports, "More cash flows home, remittances from Mexicans working abroad reach $25 billion."

Mexico City -- Mexicans working abroad sent home a record $25 billion last year, most of it from the United States, according to a study released Friday. The estimated figure represents a 25 percent increase over 2005 and a nearly 80 percent surge since 2003, the Inter-American Development Bank, or IDB, said in its report. Remittances have surpassed tourism as Mexico's second-largest source of foreign revenue, helping support more than 4 million Mexican families, said the Washington-based bank, which lends to 26 member countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Oil is Mexico's largest foreign revenue producer.

The country's reliance on remittances from abroad is not necessarily a good thing, the bank said. 'No one should celebrate that Mexico is the largest remittances market in the world,' it said. 'It means the domestic economy is simply not generating enough jobs.'

Indeed, more than half of the Mexican emigrants surveyed in another recent study by the bank said they were unemployed before leaving for the U.S. Those who held jobs in Mexico earned an average of about $150 a month. By contrast, more than half found jobs within a month of arriving in the U.S., where they earned an average monthly salary of $900.

The bank made no distinction between Mexicans who were in the U.S. legally or illegally.

(More follows on the hyperlink.)

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 4:58 PM | Permalink

The Washington Post ran this article quoting the president of Swift as saying the raids were for show.

Meatpacker: Immigration Raids Were Show
The Associated Press, February 2, 2007

Greeley, CO (AP) -- The head of meatpacker Swift & Co. said federal officials wanted a high-profile example of an immigration crackdown when they staged raids at its plants in six states in an identity theft investigation late last year.

President and CEO Sam Rovit said the government rejected the company's offer to help in the investigation months before the Dec. 12 raids.

'They were looking for a marquee to show the administration it was tough on immigration,' he told the Greeley Tribune for a story published Friday.

Rovit denied knowingly hiring illegal immigrants and told the newspaper his company complied with federal hiring practices to check applicants' immigration status.

Rovit and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman did not immediately return phone and e-mail messages from The Associated Press Friday.

ICE arrested 1,282 workers during raids in Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa and Minnesota. Of those, 246 now face state or federal identity theft charges and the rest face immigration charges.

Greeley-based Swift says it is the world's second-largest processor of fresh beef and pork, and employs about 20,000 people, including about 15,000 in the U.S.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 4:54 PM | Permalink

From 1994 until NAFTA (The American Free Trade Agreement) took effect in 2001, “total trade with Mexico had increased by a factor of 2.3, the number of intracompany transferees crossing the border had risen by a factor of 5.6, the number of temporary workers by a factor of 4.8 and the number of tourists by a factor of 2.9.” This from an article by Douglas Massey, the Princeton professor about whom I have posted before. I read this week an article he wrote, as part of a WESAW course I am taking in my town.

Go here to find the article on migration.

Massey takes a global perspective on immigration: International migrant flows “are intimately connected to broader processes of economic integration that for the past half century have been shrinking the globe.”

Flows of commodities, services and information are matched by flows of people. The industrialized countries are caught in a “contradiction”: they want to globalize everything except the flow of people. America is dead center in this contradiction. As I posted before, we have the largest number of cities with at least one million in foreign born residents, but our politicians are largely fearful of immigration.

“Immigrants arrive because the same processes of globalization that create mobile populations in developing regions and a demand for their services in global cities also create links of transportation, communication politics and cultures to make international migration easier and cheaper.”

-- from Great Decisions, 2007 edition, the Foreign Policy Association

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 1:02 PM | Permalink

Swift plants for sale?

An AP article on 1/24 suggests that the December raids on Swift, while not the only cause, may be a factor in Swift reportedly trying to sell its assets. I am running on speculation here, but is appears that – perhaps – the use of illegal workers allowed Swift to keep its labor costs down, and now without access to this labor, the economics of its plants deteriorated.

I have previously posted a Wall Street Journal article on this month on how labor costs in a chicken processing plant in Georgia rose after a raid and a shift to American workers.

My guess is that the use of illegal workers saves the employer at least 30% in labor costs. That savings can make an otherwise unprofitable business to be viable – so long as the cost of labor stays down.

Thanks to The Immigration News Blog for clueing my into follow up stories about Swift.

The article:

Swift Exploring Future Sale

By SANDY SHORE AP Business Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

DENVER — Swift & Co., one of the nation's largest meatpacking processors, may find it more lucrative to sell its assets separately instead of as a whole or testing the market with a stock offering, industry analysts said.

The privately held Swift, which was targeted by a wide-scale immigration raid last month, is looking into strategies ranging from refinancing to a sale or initial public offering, a decision executives said was made after they received some unsolicited inquiries over the past six months.

With beef and pork processing plants in six states and an operation in Australia, Swift may find buyers more interested in pieces rather than the whole company, the analysts said Tuesday.

Continue reading "Swift plants for sale after raids?" »

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 8:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I located an article in the Harvard Latino Law Review analyzing the tax contributions of undocumented immigrants

Francine Lipman, The Taxation of undocumented immigrants: separate, unequal and without representation published in October, 2006. The article focuses in-depth on income tax and social security tax issues, and is heavily annotated. I found the article in the reports section of the website for the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, or
(MIRA).

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Wall Street Journal ran an informative article today on the effect of a major ICE raid upon employer – employee relations. Evan Pérez and Corey Dade wrote the article. I posted on the raid of Crider Inc., a Stillmore, GA, poultry plant in May, 2006. The WSJ article describes the before and after:

BEFORE: employees mostly Hispanic. Workers provided company housing. Black employment since late 1990s had declined from 70% to 16%. High productivity, poor benefits and working conditions, and few employee complaints. Wages barely above minimum wage. Parking lot wage payments, in which checks were issued and immediately cashed by the employee, preventing any record of employment history. I infer that worker savings probably sent to Mexico.

AFTER: Wages increased 30% - 50%. Workforce is 65% black, 30% white, 5% Hispanic. Workers provided company housing. Much of workforce converted to independent recruiting contractor status and/or engaged through employee hiring firm. Productivity sags 10%. More complaints about worker health and safety. Labor shortages. Company searches across U.S. for people willing to work, such as Hmong migrant workers. I infer that worker savings now put into local housing, cars.

NATIONALLY, WHAT A GUEST WORKER PROGRAM WOULD DO: Boost wages by at least 30%. Prohibit independent contractor abuses. Better health and safety. Remove vulnerability of Hispanic workers to fear of deportation. Worker shortages. More investment in technology to reduce workforces.

Excerpts from the article, with some notes by me:

Continue reading "Case study of employment results of a large ICE raid on a poultry plant" »

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 11:20 AM | Permalink

The Arizona Republic presented information from the most recent Inter-American Development Bank about Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. The article starts with a personal profile: “Take Martin Armenta, for example. The Phoenix resident takes home $380 a week after taxes from his job as a cook. Yet he sends more than a third of his paycheck to his wife and two children in Sonora. How does he do it? With some serious scrimping. Armenta, 31, shares a three-bedroom house with seven other immigrant men, watches TV for entertainment and never goes out to eat."

The key to creating jobs and other forms of economic development in Mexico and Latin American countries will be using remittances to finance micro-loans and mortgages. Those types of banking tools are currently unavailable to most poor people in Latin America, said
Sergio Bendixen, a Miami-based pollster who surveyed 2,511 Latino immigrants for a study of remittances commissioned by the Inter-American Development Bank. Communities in the U.S. also stand to benefit from remittances by creating co-ops that encourage immigrants to invest money here instead of sending it home, de la Garza said.

Sending more home

The Inter-American Development Bank survey found that between 2004 and 2006, the percentage of immigrants sending money regularly increased from 61 to 73 percent. Still, the majority of immigrants who send money home earn wages considered working-poor or lower-middle-class by U.S. standards. About three-fifths earn less than $30,000 a year. A third earn less than $20,000, according to the survey, which was released in October.

About half of Latino immigrants find a job within a month of arriving in the U.S., the survey said. The first jobs they find tend to pay low, about $900 a month. But on average that is six times the amount they were earning in their home country.

Frugal lifestyle

In Mexico, incomes vary widely, but government information suggests that the vast majority of Mexican workers makes less than $21 a day.

Armenta said he sends money home to his wife and two children, ages 9and 3, every week to help them buy food, clothing and medicine. The family owns its home in Ciudad Obregón, the second-largest city in Sonora. His biggest expense is a $150-a-week car payment for the 1990 Ford pickup truck he bought shortly after arriving in Phoenix. The remainder of his $380 weekly paycheck goes to pay for auto insurance, gasoline, rent and food. Armenta's monthly share of the rent, split eight ways, is about $230, including utilities. The only furniture in the house he rents is a sofa and a few chairs. For entertainment, Armenta watches TV. He doesn't have cable. He also doesn't have a bed. He said he sleeps on the floor. Armenta said he never goes out to eat.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 6:02 AM | Permalink

Foreign-born entrepreneurs were behind one in four U.S. technology startups over the past decade, according to a study published today.

A team of researchers at Duke University estimated that one quarter of technology and engineering companies started from 1995 to 2005 had at least one senior executive - a founder, chief executive, president or chief technology officer - born outside the United States.

Other pertinent studies are a 2000 study on Silicon Valley’s new immigrant entrepreneurs

Annalee Saxenian of U.C. Sanat Cruz was author of the 2000 study, involved in the 2007 study, and one of the top experts on immigrant worker involvement in high tech.

and this study: American made: Impact of immigrant entrepreneurs and professionals on U.S. competitiveness (no date)

Key findings:

•In 25.3% of technology and engineering companies started in the U.S. from 1995 to 2005, at least one key founder was foreign-born. States with an above-average rate of immigrant-founded companies include California (39%), New Jersey (38%), Georgia (30%), and Massachusetts (29%). Below-average states include Washington (11%), Ohio (14%), North Carolina (14%), and Texas (18%).

•Nationwide, these immigrant-founded companies produced $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers in 2005.

•Indians have founded more engineering and technology companies in the U.S. in the past decade than immigrants from Britain, China, Taiwan, and Japan combined. Of all immigrant-founded companies, 26% have Indian founders.

•The mix of immigrant founders varies by state. Hispanics constitute the dominant group in Florida, with immigrants from Cuba, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, and Guatemala founding 35% of the immigrant-founded companies. Israelis constitute the largest founding group in Massachusetts, with 17%. Indians dominate New Jersey, with 47% of all immigrant-founded startups.

•Chinese (Mainland- and Taiwan-born) entrepreneurs are heavily concentrated in California, with 49% of Chinese and 81% of Taiwanese companies located there. Indian and British entrepreneurs tend to be dispersed around the country, with Indians having sizable concentrations in California and New Jersey, and the British in California and Georgia.

•In 2006, 24.2% of U.S.-originated international patent applications were authored or co-authored by foreign nationals residing in the U.S. These immigrant non-citizens, as we called them, are typically foreign graduate students completing their PhDs, green card holders awaiting citizenship, and employees of multinationals on temporary visas. This percentage had increased from 7.8% in 1988—and this count doesn't include immigrants who had become citizens.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 5:03 PM | Permalink

In its special report on the search for the talented worker, the Economist noted: “Two economists, Frédéric Docquier and Hillel Rapoport, estimate that average emigration rates worldwide are 0.9% for the low-skilled, 1.6% for the medium-skilled and 5.5% for the high-skilled. These rates have been accelerating far faster for the high-skilled group than for the rest. Skilled immigrants accounted for more than half of all admissions in Australia, Canada and New Zealand in 2001.”

also….

Germany has made it easier for skilled workers to get visas.

Britain has offered more work permits for skilled migrants.

France has introduced a “scientist visa”.

Many countries are making it easier for foreign students to stay on after graduating.

France is aiming to push up its proportion of foreign students from about 7% now to 20% over time.

Germany is trying to create a Teutonic Ivy League and wants to “internationalise studies in Germany”.

A survey of Indian executives living in America found that 68% were actively looking for opportunities to return home, and 12% had already decided to do so; and a survey of graduates of the elite All India Institute of Medical Sciences who were living abroad found that 40% were ready to go home.

Beijing has an office in Silicon Valley

The section of the special report on government policies, in full:

Continue reading "From the Economist: government policies to attract the highly talented worker." »

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 10:38 AM | Permalink

Luring illegal immigrants into a country for the purpose of coerced sex work is widely reported elsewhere but rarely reported in the U. S. Surely it happens. How bad is the problem? Several years ago I tried to find a pattern in San Francisco and found none, after talking with people informed about the sex work trade.

This Los Angeles Times article starts with: “Four women from Guatemala have been arrested as part of a scheme in which young women were lured into the U.S. with promises of good jobs and forced to become prostitutes in Los Angeles.”

Charged with importing and harboring undocumented immigrants as well as harboring them for prostitution were Gladys Vasquez Valenzuela, 36; her sisters, Jeanette, 25, and Albertina, 48; and Albertina's daughter, Maria Vicente de los Angeles, 27. Another relative, Maribel Vasquez Valenzuela, is being sought by authorities.

The investigation began three months ago when two alleged victims of the ring escaped with the help of a male customer and contacted authorities, according to the U.S. attorney's office. Two other victims were rescued by investigators last month. Ten women at the locations raided Wednesday were also believed to have been working as prostitutes and were being interviewed by authorities to determine if they also were victims.

The story continues….

Continue reading "A case of sex work coercion of illegal immigrants in the U.S." »

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 12:39 PM | Permalink

Bendixen Associate's website posted a study presented in March, 2006, drawing from a survey of Brazilians done in 2004. here are a just a few items in the presentation:

When was survey done? April - May 2004
Who received remittance? female 65% male 35%
Age of recipient: 52% are 35 or younger
How often are remittances received: at least once a month 44%; between 2 and 6 months 23%, once a year 35%
For how long: less than a year 20%, 1 - 3 years 42%, 3 -5 14%, 5 or more year 24%
Average household income of recipient: 69% under $10,000
From where? 50% US, 31% Europe, 17% Japan

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 6:16 PM | Permalink

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) ran a story on Wednesday of how a black couple built a roaring business in dry wall work in Hilton Head Island, using Hispanic labor, only to see it wither in the face the competition from former employees. This is a good case study of how immigrant labor has been cutting the cost of residential construction and creating havoc among sub-contractors.

Per the WSJ:

In 1997 the stucco business made $971,000, according to the Hairstons' tax return. To handle his blossoming business, Mr. Hairston rented a large office with four rooms, two restrooms and warehouse space behind it. He bought a condominium and a plot of land as investments. Flush with success, the Hairstons broke ground on a 7,600-square-foot, three-story house with an ornate gold-and-black gate, a cherub fountain in the front and a large swimming pool in the back.

As Hilton Head prospered, more and more Mexican immigrants flocked there. From 1% of the population in 1995, Latinos accounted for 11% of Hilton Head's 34,000 residents in 2000, according to census figures. Officials peg the current Latino population at about 15%.

One immigrant who prospered was Fidel Serrano.

After eking out a living as a baker at a doughnut shop in Houston for five years, Mr. Serrano moved to Hilton Head Island in 1994, joining two brothers who had recently settled there. "There was plenty of work and life was calmer here for the kids," recalls Mr. Serrano, a native of Mexico. Mr. Serrano, his wife, two sons and two brothers rented a rundown two-room trailer, for which they collectively paid $600 a month.

Mr. Serrano began to work in stucco, perfecting his skills as an employee of Mr. Hairston's Pro Plastering & Stucco. He says he earned $8 to $10 an hour during the two-and-a-half years he worked for Mr. Hairston. In the beginning, Mr. Serrano recalls, Mr. Hairston still employed several black workers. But gradually Mr. Hairston came to rely more on Mr. Serrano and other Mexican immigrants. "We showed up for work every day and we were dedicated," Mr. Serrano recalls.

Around 2000, Mr. Serrano struck out on his own, working as a subcontractor to Mr. Hairston. He supplied Mr. Hairston with crews for several jobs. "I was able to train the workers," who were all Spanish speakers, he recalls. Mr. Hairston typically paid him about 25% of the value of the contract for the job, he says. Mr. Serrano says that he pays taxes on all his workers, as well as workman's compensation.

….further down in the article:

Continue reading "Case study of immigrant workers in Hilton Head" »

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 5:47 PM | Permalink

Wikipedia has a well developed entry on illegal immigration to the United States. One of its tables tracks the growth of remittances to Mexico. They grew at a phenomenal rate in the past ten years, from a little under $4 billion to over $20 billion, according to Mexican banking officials. I have entered below by year the amount of remittances and the annual percentage of increase. I surmise the growth rate was spurred mostly by increases in per capita earnings of Mexican workers here – legal and illegal, for the scale of the growth cannot be accounted for by the increase in population. As I have posted before, the number of Mexican households earning more than $100,000 increased by 65% between 2000 and 2005.

The Mexican study which presented the data is found here.

year, dollars in millions, % change over prior year

1995 3.673
1996 4.224 15.0%
1997 4.865 15.2%
1998 4.744 -2.5%
1999 5.910 24.6%
2000 6.573 11.2%
2001 8.895 35.3%
2002 9.814 10.3%
2003 13.396 36.5%
2004 16.613 24.0%
2005 20.035 20.6%

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 7:31 AM | Permalink

A new book assesses the potential for organizing immigrant workers, citing examples among Los Angeles area building maintenance, trucking, construction, and garment production workers. If a guest worker program is enacted, it is very likely that the enrolled workers will have the right to collective bargaining. According to the publisher, “Los Angeles’ recent labor history highlights some of the key ingredients of the labor movement’s resurgence—new leadership, latitude to experiment with organizing techniques, and a willingness to embrace both top-down and bottom-up strategies.”

L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement, released this past August by the Russell Sage Foundation, is written by Ruth Milkman, professor of sociology and director of the Institute of Industrial Relations at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The publisher’s blurb:

Continue reading "Guest workers in the future: union organizing" »

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 6:39 AM | Permalink

I'm in New Orleans and have had conversations with people about rebuilding the residential areas. Thousands of homes have yet to be touched, but thousands are being repaired, some with replacement of all the walls. My friend Dan lives in the scacely hurt area of "Uptown." He is doing major renovations on a 3,000 foot residence. He told me that Brazilian workers from Massachusetts are essential to getting the work done. (There is strong demand for housing.) I talked with Glenn and Brad about the large, 7,500 household neighborhood of Lakeview. This is one of the most actively rebuilding neighborhoods -- virtually all homes were 4 or more feet underwater for a week. Glenn told me that governmental agencies have been well meaning but pretty much useless in the rebuilding. He said that the rebuilding could not be done without (1) Hispanic workers and (2) Wal-Mart and Home Depot stores.

And--the first restaurants to reopen were ethnic restaurants because only they had enough staff.

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 6:42 PM | Permalink

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reported on 10/11 on advances in the remittance business, which I have posted about in the past. Remittance volume to Mexico this year may exceed $23 billion.

“Dubbed "Directo a Mexico," the [new] remittance program enables U.S. commercial banks to make money transfers for Mexican workers through the Federal Reserve's own automated clearinghouse, which is linked to Banco de Mexico, the Mexican central bank.” User fees: as little as $2.50 a transaction.

“To use the service, a Mexican need only possess a matricula consular, an I.D. issued by the Mexican consulate in most major U.S. cities to those with proof of Mexican birth or citizenship, or a picture I.D. card issued by the U.S. or another foreign government.”

One desired effect of the program is to increase the use of banks by Mexicans on both sides of the border. “…One of the Federal Reserve Bank's goals is to use the program as a springboard for drawing hundreds of thousands of immigrants into the formal U.S. banking system since commercial banks require that those wanting the service first open a savings account.

“Last month, the program was expanded to enable migrants in the U.S. to open an account for relatives to whom they plan to send money. A bank teller in the U.S. can open the account remotely on a Web site set up by Mexico's Banco del Ahorro Nacional y Servicios Financieros, the development bank known as Bansefi, which has a vast network of branches in urban and rural areas.”

For undocumented workers, “the Federal Reserve's brochure poses the following frequently asked question: "If I return to Mexico or am deported, will I lose the money in my bank account?" The answer: "No. The money still belongs to you and can be easily accessed at an ATM in Mexico using your debit card."

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 6:26 AM | Permalink

The Wall Street Journal on 9/18 (payment required) tracked the work migration of a Cantu family men – self-described subidos. These are Mexicans with green cards, who leave their families in Mexico and pick up relatively well paying jobs on a contract to contact basis, crisscrossing the United States.

“Thanks to quirks in the law, they have green cards enabling them to come to the U.S. for work stints. Many, like the Cantús, call themselves 'subidos' from the Spanish verb for 'to rise,' because they do the grueling jobs of pouring concrete for tall structures such as grain silos for the ethanol plants increasingly rising across the Great Plains. "

By quickly filling jobs and providing needed skills, such workers are a boon to employers. They rarely put a burden on social services, because they leave their school-age children and elderly relatives at home. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that the Mexicans drive down wages in the industries where they work.

Some guest workers had their status legalized under the Simpson-Rodino Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which granted amnesty to 2.7 million undocumented workers. It offered that group, who call themselves 'Rodinos,' the chance at green cards that confer permanent-resident status and the right to work. The act was intended to encourage U.S. citizenship, but some preferred the guest-worker way of life, as the Cantús do, earning wages in the U.S. but keeping their families and their living costs in Mexico.

Others acquired work visas through programs that legalized imported farm workers during times of labor shortages. Still others won green cards after being sponsored by a parent who became a naturalized U.S. citizen, or by marrying a U.S. citizen. About 100,000 Mexicans also legally commute short distances across the border for day jobs in the U.S.

Continue reading "“Subidos” or Mexicans working legally in migrant construction work" »

Posted by Peter Rousmaniere at 1:20 PM | Permalink

From the AP: The Mexicans living abroad sent $11 billion home in the first half of 2006, an increase of 23 percent over the same period last year, the government news agency Notimex reported Friday.