Thread: Jobless rate for Arizona immigrants climbs

Jobless rate for Arizona immigrants climbs
by Jahna Berry - Oct. 17, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic


After years of roughly the same level of unemployment, Arizona workers who were not born U.S. citizens faced an unemployment rate that was 2.6 percent higher than that of native-born workers in 2009, U.S. statistics show.

Native-born workers had a 10.4 percent unemployment rate, compared with 13 percent for non-citizens.


The figures help demonstrate how Arizona workers - both those born in the U.S. as well as immigrants - fared during the brunt of the recession.

Generally speaking, unemployment numbers in 2009 probably reflect that many immigrants worked in industries that were hard-hit by the economic downturn, said Judith Gans, an immigration expert at the University of Arizona. It's probably too early to say if state laws aimed at curbing illegal immigration affected unemployment rates, she said.

The data comes from the American Community Survey, which is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The most recent statistics, which cover calendar year 2009, were released in September.

The census data does not specify if non-citizens are illegal immigrants. The non-citizen category includes a spectrum of foreigners, including those with work visas. During each of the four years analyzed by The Arizona Republic, the U.S. census survey-sample size ranged from 33,700 to 34,500 Arizona residents.


Hard-hit sectors

The rise in the unemployment rate among Arizona immigrants probably reflects their skill level and employment in hard-hit sectors such as construction and hospitality. These fields, which tend to employ many immigrants, were among those affected the most by the recession, Gans said.

The unemployment rate is more reflective of workers' "skill level rather than citizenship status," said Gans, manager of the university's Immigration Policy Program at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy.

"So, a lot of the sectors that have been hit (during the recession) have been sectors that employ low-skilled workers," she said. "And to the extent that immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, are low-skill workers more than the population on average, they are going to be hit harder."

In calendar year 2009, the state lost 30 percent of its construction jobs, according to state figures. Arizona lost 9,000 construction jobs from August 2009 to August 2010.

In calendar year 2009, Arizona lost 5.2 percent of its leisure and hospitality jobs, according to state figures. The state lost 2,400 leisure and hospitality jobs from August 2009 to August 2010.


Legal Workers Act

The rise in unemployed immigrants also follows the implementation of the Arizona Legal Workers Act, which penalizes employers who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants.

The state's employer-sanctions law requires employers to use E-Verify, a free online federal system, to check the legal status of all new employees. Those who don't risk losing their business licenses if they employ an illegal worker.

Gans said that it was too early to conclude whether the law affected immigrants' ability to get jobs. The law, which took effect Jan. 1, 2008, was implemented as the recession was beginning. It will take further research to determine how much of an effect the law had on immigrant unemployment and how much simply was due to the recession, she said.

Arizona's brutal job market combined with its large immigrant population also has stoked fears that undocumented workers are taking jobs from U.S. citizens.

Among academics, there is a "rich debate," Gans said, about to what extent immigrant and native-born labor complement each other and to what extent one labor force can substitute for the other.

In Gans' research, she has found that most immigrants tend to go where there is more opportunity - either high-skilled technical jobs or low-skilled jobs that, because of physical demands or because they require little experience, often attract younger workers.

As a whole, U.S. workers tend to have medium-level skills - a high-school diploma or some college. U.S. workers who tend to have less schooling typically are older, which may be why young immigrants have gravitated to construction work.


Tougher competition

The recession has made it tough for new arrivals to the U.S. to compete for entry-level jobs, said Peoria resident Audace Miburo, a refugee from Burundi.

With many U.S. citizens out of work, more employers now want workers to be more fluent in English, he said.

"Before you could get a job and they would say, 'I'll get someone to train you,' " Miburo said. "Now you have to take an English test before you get the job."

On a recent morning at Chicanos Por La Causa's Westside Workforce Development Center in Phoenix, Miburo, 35, of Peoria, was studying to take a GED test. The additional schooling will help him get another job, Miburo said.

"So many people can't find a job, especially those who just arrived from Africa," Miburo said.


Deep wounds

The U.S. census figures are also a stark reminder of how deeply the region was wounded by the recession.

In 2006, 4.9 percent of the state's workers were jobless. Today, that number is 10.6 percent, according to the American Community Survey.

Figures from the American Community Survey are higher than Arizona's official unemployment rate, which was 9.7 percent in August and 9.1 percent in August 2009. The survey's unemployment rate is higher because Arizona economists use additional information from the federal government to refine raw survey numbers to get a more accurate unemployment number for the state.

www.azcentral.com

The rise in unemployed immigrants also follows the implementation of the Arizona Legal Workers Act, which penalizes employers who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants.

The state's employer-sanctions law requires employers to use E-Verify, a free online federal system, to check the legal status of all new employees. Those who don't risk losing their business licenses if they employ an illegal worker.

Gans said that it was too early to conclude whether the law affected immigrants' ability to get jobs. The law, which took effect Jan. 1, 2008, was implemented as the recession was beginning. It will take further research to determine how much of an effect the law had on immigrant unemployment and how much simply was due to the recession, she said.

They are not undocumented immigrants - THEY ARE ILLEGAL ALIENS

E-Verify does not affect the immigrants' ability to get employment - JUST THE ILLEGAL ALIENS

I am sick of these newspapers and their careful bleeding heart wording.

Who cares about whether illegal aliens can find work? We have 15 million, probably more, US CITIZENS unemployed. That is all we should care about.

And I do not see it getting any better IF,this NEW home FORECLOSURE debacle hits. We are going to be in for yet another ride,thanks yet again to a bank.

And the country still allows more immigrants into this country every year,not to mention all the ILLEGALS getting in. Either they have a job or they are sucking more out of the social funds!

It is always about the poor illegals. Let us stop for a moment here and think of the Americans that created these jobs over the years and are being pushed out of them by ILLEGALS AND even visa holders. Some of these companies ARE NOT hiring Americans over the age of 50 or even some of our ex military people.

And by the way here in this area homelessness for ex military people has grown.

And I learned this week that on your computer screen, when browsing for job postings, and they show their minimal requirements, some are saying they hire only visa holders. You DO NOT see that requirement on your screen ,BUT the computers in the unemployment offices do. So these companies are essentially breaking the laws by hiring immigrants before the citizens.

And showing minimal requirements is not exactly right either. They do actually prefer more experiences.

Also on the news: 9.5 million people are working part time jobs because they can not find full time work. So they are under employed!