William Larsen

Immigration & Jobs Americans Won't Do!

I heard on the radio last night the comments from a religious leader say that immigrants help the economy. I heard another state that immigrants do jobs that Americans won't. I heard this morning that many illegal immigrants who had children born in the United States say they do not want their parents sent home.

The media likes to interject a few basic 10 to 20 second sound bits and then ask bystanders questions. It would not be bad if the media had researched the issue. The media has not researched the issue and if they had, they would be singing a different tune so to speak.

Steven Camarota is the Research Director for the Center of Immigration Studies. He spoke before a panel, which provides quantitative support against amnesty for illegal aliens as well as looking at increasing immigration.

• The Department of Labor and Commerce track 473 specific occupations to divide the economy.
• The number of immigrants counted represent 100% of legal and 90% of illegal workers.
• There was no majority occupation that immigrants do that natives do not. If there were, it would show up as 80% to 90% of an occupation being immigrant.
• There are 35 occupations where immigrants make up nearly 1/3 of the workers but these occupations represent just 7% of the total U.S. Workforce.
• These 35 occupations have 5 million natives employed.
• ½ the native born drop outs and 1/3 of the natives with only a high school education are in occupations that have 15% immigrants.
• Native workers face significant competition in Construction, Cab Drivers, Nannies, Maids and housekeepers where most are native workers.
  
• In 2005 there were 4 million native’s unemployed and 19 million who stopped looking for work.
• The share of unemployed with less education is way up.
• The U.S. does not have a 5% unemployment rate. The 5% unemployment rate is used to support immigration.
• Unemployment among less educated natives is up 11% while it is 13% for dropouts.
• The perception is the U.S. is in need of less educated workers, which is not true.
• They already have the highest unemployment rate
• The lowest wage rate
• Employment participation among less educated had declined dramatically.
• They took the poorest workers and made them poorer.
  
Less educated immigrants and less educated natives do the same kinds of work.

• There is no such thing as a job a native will not do.
• Allowing legal status to illegals has enormous implications for America’s poorest workers.
• America is not short of less educated workers given the high unemployment rate and the high number of less educated workers who have stopped looking.
  

I highly recommend you listen to his testimony. It is about 19 minutes long, but very, very informative. He does a very good job

posted by William Larsen @ 11:39 AM