Thread: Pew: 72% of illegals have jobs, biggest in construction

By PAUL BEDARD • 3/16/17 9:48 AM

Over seven in 10 of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States have jobs, many good-paying positions in construction, according to a new analysis of immigrants in the workforce.

The Pew Research Center said that 8 million illegal immigrants have jobs, some 72 percent of all illegals, and they are big as masons, maids and field workers.



"All told, immigrants made up 17.1 percent of the total U.S. workforce in 2014, or about 27.6 million workers out of 161.4 million. About 19.6 million workers, or 12.1 percent of the total workforce, were in the U.S. legally; about 8 million, or 5 percent, entered the country without legal permission or overstayed their visas," said Pew.

The report's focus is on the overall number of immigrants with jobs and Pew stresses that there is no industry where immigrants, legal and illegal, have a majority of jobs.

However, the report shows just how many jobs they do have and it breaks down the numbers jobs held by legal immigrants and illegal immigrants. And those numbers are big in many industries.

For private home jobs, immigrants make up nearly 50 percent. Ditto for the agriculture industry.



But in some specific jobs, immigrants do dominate, found Pew. "Immigrants account for about 60 percent of graders and sorters of agricultural products as well as plasterers and stucco masons, 55 percent of sewing machine operators, and about half of maids and housekeepers, tailors and dressmakers, and miscellaneous agricultural workers," said Pew.

Advocates of cutting immigration into the United States, and deporting criminal illegals, have stressed that too many are taking jobs that Americans want, especially those with higher wages.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/pe...rticle/2617560

Come on now, That can't be correct........

We all know they are here to work our farms because Americans won't do it.

You're being facetious right, lorrie? Cuz Americans have always worked our farms. We don't need foreign labor to work our farms. We really never did.

Originally Posted by Judy

You're being facetious right, lorrie? Cuz Americans have always worked our farms. We don't need foreign labor to work our farms. We really never did.

Of coarse I am....... ha ha ha

I am being SARCASTIC!

LOL!! I knew that, just wanted to emphasize!! Hey, you know my Dad and his buddy Pat rode on the back of a pick-up truck all the way from the midwest to California to pick fruit. He made enough money to buy a brand new beautiful car and great suits and ties. He also got hot and made the mistake of taking his shirt off, suffered awful with a bad sunburn, the tricks of the trade, keep your shirt on. My cousin also from the midwest went out to California to pick lettuce, worked summers in California picking lettuce to help pay his way through college, he became an electrical engineer and worked for AT&T.

Farm work can be good money when you're not undercut by foreign workers. My grandparents were dairy farmers, my parents also had a farm and raised steers and heifers. My uncle grew corn. We know all about farming.

Farming is good work but unfortunately farming is disappearing.

I was born and raised in NY and had family all throughout south Jersey and I remember there was nothing but farms as far as you can see.

We had corn fields, tomatoes, pumpkins, watermelon, oranges, peppers, strawberries and as kids we would sneak on the properties late at night and steal watermelons.

Its all gone now, we outsourced to Mexico and Latin America.

The next one to go are the cattle ranches because Australia took over the beef business and we can't compete with there export prices. We only have 3 family owned beef distributors left in the U.S.

Even our shell fish is outsourced to Mexico. No more crabbing in Jersey.

It's sad isn't it to see our farming disappearing.