Thread: Immigrants aren't to blame for job lull in North Carolina

http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... /606190307

Article published Jun 19, 2006

Immigrants aren't to blame for job lull

By Justin Palk and Taft Wireback
Staff Writers

If all or most of the state's 288,500 unauthorized Hispanic residents were deported, "our economy would suffer."
Jack Kasarda, director of the Kenan Institute at UNC-Chapel Hill and a study authorEarly one morning recently, Michael Donnell was standing outside a temporary employment agency on South Elm-Eugene Street, waiting for it to open so he could get work for the day.

It's been almost a year since the Greensboro resident held a permanent job, and he blames low-paid immigrant workers as part of the reason.

"Cheaper pay for them, less work for us," he said.

But James Chambers, another Greensboro resident waiting outside the agency, said other things blocked him and many unemployed residents from full-time work.

In his case, Chambers said, the obstacle was the lack of a car.

Those two beliefs reflect the differences of opinion as to how much impact illegal immigration is having on the Piedmont Triad labor market, where foreigners who are in this country unlawfully work mainly in low-paid, low-skill jobs.

There is some evidence that illegal immigrants could be depressing wages in industries that rely heavily on their labor: construction, restaurants and building maintenance.

But employment agencies and others who work with job seekers cite little evidence that large numbers of illegal immigrants are taking desirable jobs in other industries.

"It's hard to say it's a problem caused by illegal immigrants," said Vanessa Smith, program manager for Guilford County Work First, of her agency's work with roughly 1,300 jobless welfare recipients.

There's no question illegal immigrants are receiving jobs that Work First clients could be doing, said Smith, whose agency helps welfare recipients find jobs to get them off public assistance.

But U.S.-born clients fail to land a job most often because of a glitch in their background, such as a felony conviction or their refusal to work long hours at relatively low pay, Smith said.

Displaced workers from the region's diminishing manufacturing base are bigger rivals for the better types of jobs than illegal immigrants, Smith said. That's because many of the former mill workers have good work histories coveted by employers, she said.

Statistical and academic studies also have reached conflicting conclusions about illegal immigration's impact on employment nationally and across North Carolina.

The Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates tighter immigration controls, suggested in a recent study that immigrant workers are displacing U.S. citizens with lower levels of education from North Carolina's work force.

The group did not prove a direct link between the growing number of North Carolina jobs held by illegal immigrants and the decrease in "natives" with a high school degree or less who hold jobs.

But it said the growing pool of longtime North Carolina residents who are unemployed or no longer seeking work deflates a popular argument, made by champions of illegal immigrants, that they take jobs for which there's no ready source of homegrown workers.

"What's happening at the bottom end of the labor market in North Carolina and nationally? A larger and larger share of less-educated natives are dropping out," said Steven Camarota, who compiled the study.

But another study earlier this year by the Kenan Institute at UNC-Chapel Hill took the opposite approach in analyzing the economic impact of North Carolina's 601,000-plus Hispanic population, 48 percent of which is estimated to be here illegally.

The Kenan study said that as North Carolina's largest group of newcomers, Hispanics are vital to the state's economy. Hispanic residents, both legal and illegal, pump more than $9 billion into the state's economy every year.

"We are dependent upon them in many sectors," said Jack Kasarda, the institute director and a study author.

If all or most of the state's 288,500 unauthorized Hispanic residents were deported, "our economy would suffer," he said. "We would have inflation. Everything would go up, from the general cost of living to restaurant food and the cost of roadwork."

That could have consequences for jobs held by many legal residents of North Carolina, he said.

Meanwhile, it remains unclear whether illegal immigrants depress wages for citizens in all occupations. Data from the state Employment Security Commission show that wage increases have slowed in industries known to hire significant numbers of illegal immigrants, such as construction, cleaning and maintenance, food preparation and production.

While the average hourly wage increased 97 cents for all Triad workers, from $15.69 to $16.66, during the past 30 months, it rose in high-immigrant occupations as little as 3 cents in food preparation to as much as 83 cents in cleaning and maintenance.

Job seeker Donnell said that for the past few weeks, he's been cleaning dorms in High Point, work he got through a temporary employment agency. He wants full-time work as a painter or carpenter but hasn't been able to find it, he said.

Donnell dismissed the notion illegal immigrants are doing work U.S. citizens don't want, saying people are willing to work, regardless of the job.

"I'm just going to do this as long as I have to," he said of his work with the temporary agency. "It's better than nothing."

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or twireback@news-record.com

I am sick of this rhetoric too. It is bologna. Illegals are bringing down wages and driving up taxes. Everyone in the lower and middle class is suffering for it, especially the lower class. But if the flow of illegals is allowed to continue basically unchecked the effects on the middle class will be seen more and more.

My question remains the same: Who was doing all these jobs before the massive influx of illegals? AMERICANS!!!!!!