Only about 5 percent of lawyers and 6 percent of journalists are immigrants, compared with one-fourth of construction laborers and one-third of janitors. When more educated and affluent people say, "Immigrants only take jobs Americans don't want," what they really mean is that immigrants only take jobs they don't want.
When businesses say, "Immigrants only take jobs Americans don't want," what they really mean is that given what they would like to pay, and how they would like to treat their workers, they cannot find enough Americans. Therefore, employers want the government to continually increase the supply of labor by nonenforcement of immigration laws and keeping legal immigration levels as high as possible. This in turn holds down wages and benefits, especially at the bottom end of the labor market, as well as allowing them to put off investment that would increase productivity.
The idea that America is desperately short of less-skilled workers is absurd on its face. There are 70 million native-born Americans and legal immigrants already here between the ages of 18 and 64 who have only a high school education. This is an enormous pool of labor that if properly paid and treated could satisfy all the labor demands of American employers.
This is a good article I think might interest you.
I know there's a labor pool for unskilled jobs, but the problem is that a lot of it doesn't want to work. This is even true in the case of jobs that are not low-paid, or that are low-paid at entry (as are most jobs) but then rise to a very respectable wage fairly quickly. Heck, most teachers earn less than a skilled bricklayer; there's such a shortage of bricklayers that now a lot of architects and landscape architects are redesigning their projects here to eliminate brick because it's impossible to get it done.
As far as really unskilled labor jobs go, I heard one loser ex-con here, quitting after two days on a roofing job, say the work was too hard and it was a job only for Mexicans. It was $10.00 an hour, btw, which is not a high wage, but certainly decent for an unskilled laborer. Of course, the Mexicans do take these jobs, stay on them for six months or so until the project is finished, and then head home with thousands of dollars in their pocket.
A family member spent ages trying to fill a truck driver position at a non-profit for which she works because none of the candidates had driver's licenses (even though there's absolutely nothing preventing them from reading the book or going to the driver's ed classes and getting a license). One of them got infuriated when he was requested to provide his license for insurance purposes and even threatened her. Of course, it turned out he didn't have one and had never had one. Why not? He couldn't even do that little bit?
I think it's a double-sided problem. We have a lot of people in the US who have been brought up in the welfare culture and the society of irresponsibility and are incapable of getting off their backsides. We also have employers who are benefitting by being able to shave dollars off of benefits, etc. because they know that the Mexicans are never going to be around long enough to collect them and will not complain about anything they do. Also, it benefits the governmment, because many illegals have fake SS numbers into which money is theoretically paid - nobody ever seems to match up whether this is a valid number, for some reason - but of course it is never paid out in benefits.
I am in favor of a guest worker program (with significant restrictions, such as a requirement that all "guests" learn English, that Mexico agree to repatriate them if they commit crimes, etc.) because I think it would level the playing field. If these workers have the ability to leave whenever they want and complain about unjust treatment, etc., then they will be like US workers, so the employers won't have that advantage any more. On the other hand, I still don't know what's going to make productive workers out of the native-born folks who spend all day standing around parking lots drinking beer or waiting for their grandmother to get her Social Security payment so she can turn it over to them. So maybe the situation wouldn't change that much anyway. Sigh. Sorry to sound so cynical. Just based on observation.
What we are talking about is entry level positions. You are not going to make a comfortable living in an entry level job. Most people start at the bottom and work their way up, if you have a little education you can start a little higher. We all had to do it that way. Here in California we have high school dropouts working as handymen living in half million dollar homes, that's why the whole world is invading us. Instead of crying about it these whiners should jump right in, this is the most fantastic time to live in the most fantastic country in the history of the world.
"Only about 5 percent of lawyers and 6 percent of journalists are immigrants, compared with one-fourth of construction laborers and one-third of janitors. When more educated and affluent people say, "Immigrants only take jobs Americans don't want," what they really mean is that immigrants only take jobs they don't want.
When businesses say, "Immigrants only take jobs Americans don't want," what they really mean is that given what they would like to pay, and how they would like to treat their workers, they cannot find enough Americans. Therefore, employers want the government to continually increase the supply of labor by nonenforcement of immigration laws and keeping legal immigration levels as high as possible. This in turn holds down wages and benefits, especially at the bottom end of the labor market..."
Your post is right on the money.