Shorpy Higginbotham might have preferred the dole
to this cruddy job if he’d had a choice
The Center for Immigration Studies just finished an in-depth analysis of employment statistics for low skill illegal aliens and low skill native Americans.
The findings, generally:
- there are plenty of low skill Americans available for work (24 million)
- 6 to 7 million illegals are currently employed in the US
So those that say “there aren’t enough Americans” are wrong. 24 million low skill Americans are unemployed right now – that is 4 for every job illegals hold.
The question then is “why aren’t the American’s being hired?”.
There must be a cost difference between the two populations. Illegals are in no position to bargain and hiring illegals gives opportunity to hide other labor costs.
But I suspect that the main benefit is that the illegals are better workers. For the hiring to work out this way, some large percent of those 24 million would have to be unsuitable workers. Perhaps they have drug, criminal or mental issues. Perhaps some are just lazy, preferring the dole to work and taking jobs just so they can leave them for the unemployment benefits.
Still others in that group use the jobs as a gateway to better jobs, meaning turnover that costs the employer. Turnover that illegals, limited in opportunities, can’t churn.
So, yes, they are available, just not as good in cost or productivity.
This means the only way to reduce this problem is to make it expensive to be caught hiring illegals.
Unless we do something along those lines we will end up with both the burden of unassimilated foreigners and unemployed natives. I’ll take one or the other, but not both.