Thread: Housing Slump Hits Hispanic Workers, But Most Immigrants Rem

The Wall Street Journal
Housing Slump Hits Hispanic Workers,
But Most Immigrants Remain in U.S.
By MIRIAM JORDAN
June 4, 2008 11:41 a.m.

The housing slump has disproportionately hurt Hispanic workers, provoking a jump in unemployment that has hit the immigrants among them the hardest, according to a new study. However, there are no signs that Latinos are quitting the U.S. labor market -- a strong indication that immigrants are choosing to bear down and hustle for jobs in the U.S. rather than return to their countries of origin.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate among Hispanics reached 6.5% in the first quarter of 2008 from its historic low of 4.9% in the fourth quarter of 2006, according to the report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization. The report is based on Pew's analysis of the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census bureau, which includes both immigrant and native-born Hispanics.

The Hispanic unemployment rate is well above the 4.7% unemployment rate for all non-Hispanics. As recently as the end of 2006, the gap between Hispanic and non-Hispanic unemployment had shrunk to a record low of 0.5 percentage points.

Hispanics mainly lost jobs over the past year due to the slowdown in construction, a longtime mainstay of job growth for Latino workers, particularly immigrants. Weekly earnings in construction tumbled hand in hand with the downturn, to $480 a week in the first quarter of 2007 compared with $512 in the same quarter of 2006. "The economic slowdown led by a single industry has impacted the one group of workers who had benefited most from the construction boom," says Rakesh Kochhar, an economist at Pew Hispanic who prepared the report.

Even as homebuilding stumbled, Hispanics were able to find nearly 300,000 new jobs in the construction industry in the year that stretched from the first quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2007. The study suggests that the slowdown has finally caught up with the workers in the last year.

"The latest trends in the labor market represent a dramatic reversal for Latino workers," the report says, adding: "The ongoing slump in construction has wiped out those gains virtually in their entirety."

The Department of Labor estimates that 26% of about seven million construction workers are Hispanic, but independent researchers and industry observers believe the actual proportion of Hispanics in the industry's workforce is significantly higher because many are immigrants who are hired off the books.

Indeed, the swelling tide of Latino unemployment has fallen mostly on the shoulders of immigrants. The construction industry's contraction, coupled with federal government operations to enforce immigration, has made undocumented immigrant workers particularly vulnerable to job loss. The unemployment rate among foreign-born Hispanics, many of whom are here illegally, jumped to 7.5% in the first quarter of 2008, compared with 5.5% in the first quarter of 2007, according to the Pew Hispanic report. For native-born Hispanics, or Hispanic Americans, that rate was 6.9% in the first quarter of 2008, up just slightly from 6.7% in 2007

This also marks the first time since 2003 that a higher percentage of foreign-born than native-born Latinos were unemployed, reflecting immigrants' prominent role in construction. About 20% of immigrant Latinos were employed in the sector in the first quarter of 2007, compared with only 8% of native-born Latinos.

Many undocumented workers don't appear on employment rosters because they work as independent contractors or are hired indirectly by big developers through subcontractors or labor brokers who don't officially hire every worker. "They were ghosts to begin with," says Rose Quint, an economist at the National Association of Homebuilders. Thus, she says, "the decline in employment is probably bigger than numbers are showing."

John Dewey, a residential developer in the outskirts of Philadelphia, remembers 30 years ago when he joined the construction industry as a carpenter. "When you looked around the site, you saw 100% Americans," he recalls. Surveying a construction site in Coatesville, Penn., where his company is building houses, he said, "If you look around now, 35% to 40% of the workforce is recent immigrants."

Housing starts nationally are down to 800,000 from two million in 2005, the peak year. Dewey says housing starts in his area are down 40%. The picture is even gloomier in cities like Atlanta, Phoenix and Las Vegas.

Despite the economic downturn, the Latino immigrant working-age population continued to grow through 2007, albeit at a slower pace. Having absorbed an additional 736,000 Hispanic immigrants in 2005, the U.S. workforce took in only 325,000 foreign born Latinos in the first quarter of 2007, says the Pew Hispanic study. All told, labor force participation among foreign-born Hispanics has remained unchanged, or 70% in the first quarters of the years 2006, 20007 and 2008 – a clear indication that they are not throwing in the towel and returning to their countries of origin.

"There is a resiliency in this work force; the immigrants remain active -- either on the job or looking for a job," says Mr. Kochhar, the economist at Pew Hispanic. That's possibly "because they are foreign born they don't have access to social safety nets," such as unemployment benefits, says Mr. Kochhar. At least some workers have flocked to landscaping, janitorial and other service-sector jobs, he says.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1212589 ... lenews_wsj

What this means is that many of the illegal aliens are staying on here by cutting their wage rates and doubling up on their housing even further.

The housing slump has disproportionately hurt Hispanic workers, provoking a jump in unemployment that has hit the immigrants among them the hardest, according to a new study. However, there are no signs that Latinos are quitting the U.S. labor market -- a strong indication that immigrants are choosing to bear down and hustle for jobs in the U.S. rather than return to their countries of origin.



I'm not buying into the pro-illegal tilt coming from this writer. Not when there is more than ample evidence......including coming from the IAs and their advocates themselves.....which indicates that they are, in fact, leaving and in large numbers. Heck, even Mexico and other countries are crying about the high numbers of their citizens who are, voluntarily or otherwise, returning home.

Anymore, I tend to look at claims like this writer makes as nothing more than denial, efforts to make the American public believe that IAs are here to stay, unable to be driven out under any circumstances, and to frustrate those of us involved in this fight by trying to make it appear that IAs and their advocates still have the upper hand.

But, whatever. In this economy, with more and more Americans being unable to afford the basics, the more which is printed about IAs competing for, and stealing, jobs, the better. Not only will more folks wake up to the reality of illegal immigration but the more angry people will become forcing even more and stricter action by our government.

Confused -- then see how this journalist reports this:

Recession May Be Driving Off Illegals

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-118039.html