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Study: Job rates higher for Mexicans living in Georgia
More native Georgians unemployed
By Walter C. Jones | Morris News Service | Story updated at 9:15 PM on Wednesday, March 8, 2006
ATLANTA - Mexicans living in the Peach State are less likely to be unemployed than native Georgians, but their presence and acceptance of low-paying jobs doesn't necessarily hold down overall wages, according to a study released Wednesday by the University of Georgia.

Mexicans and their descendants are the largest group of recent immigrants in the state, making up nearly 5 percent of the state's work force. In 2004, the year the study examined, Mexicans older than 16 had an unemployment rate of just 3.6 percent. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for the state as a whole was 4.9 percent.

Those Mexican workers were employed mostly in construction, manufacturing, retailing, hotels and restaurants. Nearly all earn less than $30,000 a year. In the construction field, almost one in five workers is Mexican, according to the study.

From 1997-2002, revenue for the state's construction industry rose a stunning 46 percent, the same as the national rate. The study noted that Mexican workers helped hold down wages in that particular Georgia industry, since pay for that type of work grew about half as fast as it did in the nation at large.

"Looking at this sudden growth, one would expect wages would explode as well, but the opposite is true," said researcher Beata D. Kochut, the study's primary author.

During the 1990s when employers were having trouble finding workers, the influx of Mexicans and other immigrants filled many jobs that would have been vacant otherwise. They weren't taking slots away from native Georgians then, said Jeff Humphreys, director of UGA's Selig Center for Economic Growth, which conducted the study. Even since 2001, the picture remains cloudy.

Many proponents of tougher enforcement of immigration laws say wages would rise if the flow of foreigners stopped and unemployment would drop. Humphreys said it's not that simple. "It clearly depresses wages, at least in sectors that get a supply of Hispanic workers," he said. "But it probably pushes up wages in other sectors."

Immigrants also are consumers, and they pay sales taxes and other taxes. That money helps fuel the economy, too, he said, making Georgia the 10th-largest Hispanic market in the United States.