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Saturday, October 07, 2006



Young workers displaced by influx of immigrants
By Karina Gonzalez Staff Writer

As Federico Morales works the ground with his shovel to make room for pine trees outside a local hotel, he speaks of the family he left behind in Mexico and his motivation to work here.

"This can be hard work," said Mr. Morales, 28, who left Chiapas for the United States more than five years ago and was speaking in Spanish. "Like everyone else, I came here to work and earn a living."

Mr. Morales is among millions of immigrants who have come to this country searching for work. Between 2000 and 2005, 4.1 million immigrant workers arrived here, accounting for 86 percent of the increase in the total number of people employed nationally, according to a study.

The Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., group that supports stricter enforcement of immigration laws, published a study in September by researchers at Northeastern University. They found that American workers ages 16 to 34 are being displaced in the job market by immigrants.

Steven Camarota, director of research for the center, said both legal and illegal immigration have a negative effect on young native-born workers with little education, in particular blacks.

"Immigration has a much bigger effect at the bottom" (of the labor market), he said. "And illegal immigration has an even greater effect."

But Chattanooga resident Dave Gardner, who operates Metro Lawn Care, a landscaping company where Mr. Morales works, said his business depends on immigrant workers who earn the same as their American counterparts. He said many native-born workers quit after several months of work.

"We literally have a terrible time holding on to the nativeborn of this country," Mr. Gardner, 35, said. "They’ll come in and work for a few months. It’s either too hard or too hot. ... They don’t want to stay, and it’s not even plausible to say that an average company looking for labor, when they hire immigrant labor, that these people are taking jobs from Americans."

Mr. Gardner said workers who leave his company often take on less arduous jobs, which pay less but do not involve working in the sun all day.

Mr. Gardner said he takes all the necessary steps to ensure the workers he hires have permission to work in the United States legally.

Mr. Camarota said states with the highest growth in immigrants also have experienced a decline in unemployment rates for people with little education.

He said 68 percent of Tennessee residents with a high school education or less were employed in 2000, a figure that decreased to 61 percent in 2005. During the same time period, the number of immigrants in the work force with little education increased from 2 percent in 2000 to 10 percent in 2005 in the state, he said.

"There does seem to be what’s called a crowding-out effect going on, particularly at the bottom end of the labor market," said Mr. Camarota, who has authored separate reports on the same topic. "We are getting a big rise in the percentage and number of people in (Tennessee) who are idle. It seems that it’s associated with an increase in the number of people who say, ‘I’m just not looking for a job.’"

Mr. Camarota said the reasons for the shift toward hiring more immigrants are not clear, but he said wages for lowskilled workers have remained stagnant or declined over the years. In addition, employers are not willing to provide lowskilled workers with benefits, he said.

Immigrants, who are willing to relocate for jobs, have accepted the low wages with fewer benefits, thus keeping wages down and affecting native workers with little education who would be competing for those jobs, he said.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, the number of native-born men who were employed between 2000 and 2005 declined by 1.7 million, a time when the number of immigrants workers increased by 1.9 million.

Michael Fix, vice president and director of studies for the Immigration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan group based in Washington, D.C., said research on the effects of immigrants on American workers has failed so far to provide conclusive data.

"There is no consensus within the literature regarding the often-heard statement that immigrants lead to large wage and job losses for natives," Mr. Fix said. "One third of Americans believe immigrants lead to these large wage and job losses, but it’s more complex."

Mr. Fix said immigrants to the United States have contributed to all sectors of the labor force.

"Immigrants are one in eight U.S. residents and one in every seven low-wage workers," Mr. Fix said. "But that’s not the end of the story. Immigrants are one in every five doctors in the U.S., and two out of every five medical researchers are foreign-born. Half of our Nobel Prize winners since 1990 are foreign born."

Henry Tipton, a home builder and president of the Home Builders Association of Southern Tennessee, said Hispanic workers have become more common in construction trades, in particular in masonry, roofing and framing.

"The demand is still there, and the immigrant labor force is there," he said. "If you are going to be in the labor force, it’s something that you have to understand, that there (are) going to be Hispanic workers."

Mr. Tipton said that although Hispanic workers have increased in the construction industry, it remains dominated by nativeborn workers.

E-mail Karina Gonzalez at kgonzalez@timesfreepress.com