Posted on 02/13/2009 7:57:28 AM PST by SmithL
CONCORD — German Moises Avalos is tired of waiting for work that never comes. He spent half of last year scouring for construction jobs in Atlanta, then he made his way to Concord three months ago searching for something better.
"I thought that maybe I could find more work, but the economic crisis is here, too," he said. The 25-year-old intends to return to El Salvador as soon as he can save enough money for a plane ticket home.
The unemployment rate for foreign-born Latinos increased from 5.1 percent to 8 percent from the end of 2007 to the end of 2008, according to a report released Thursday by the Pew Hispanic Center.
The recession is being deeply felt in places such as Concord's Monument Boulevard corridor, where a predominantly Latino population has relied in years past on a thriving building industry to find work.
"Construction is driving this downturn and Latinos who were dependent on this construction boom are being let go in record numbers," said Rakesh Kochhar, associate research director for the nonpartisan center based in Washington, D.C.
In at least one sense, immigrant Latinos are still better off than native-born Latinos and African-Americans, two groups that have higher overall rates of unemployment. About 11.5 percent of African-Americans were unemployed in the last three months of 2008, and 9.5 percent of native-born Latinos were without work, said Kochhar, who looked at information from a monthly survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau.
But in the past year, no group has dropped from the nation's workforce at a faster rate than Latinos from abroad, Kochhar said. Some of the problems along Monument Boulevard can be measured by the record 6,500 people who now seek free food every month from the Monument Crisis Center, said Sandra Scherer, the nonprofit's executive director.
She said hardworking people who once lived paycheck to paycheck no longer have any checks to live on. Troubles once the province of local day laborers are now being shared by those laid off from the service sector and other industries.
"People who had the better job are now trying to get a less satisfying job," she said. "It's just pushing everybody down into poverty, which is why we're seeing so many people here."
Another bleak barometer is the calendar board at Monument Futures, a center for day laborers to find work that pays at least $12 an hour. On Monday, according to markings posted on the board, 57 people came looking for work and four found it. On Saturday, just two found work out of 54 hopefuls. Many more don't bother signing up at the center, instead trying their luck on sidewalks or the grounds of a recently closed gas station. This winter, many said they are lucky to find one full day of work a week, usually doing painting, gardening or moving.
"There is no work," said Mexican immigrant William Ake, 38, who in the past year has traveled as far as Manteca and Oregon seeking jobs. "If it does not improve by July, I will return to my home in Yucatan." Prospects were no better there, he said, but it is where his family lives.
Of 1.2 million construction jobs lost nationwide, about 343,000 of them were held by Latinos, both immigrant and native.
The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that illegal migrants, the majority from Mexico, have accounted for 12 percent of the nation's construction workforce, 5 percent of the total workforce and one third of the foreign-born workforce.
Many arrived intending to send a significant portion of their earnings back home, but those hopes, too, have dried up.
Alma Luja, manager of a Monument branch of Sigue Corp., a place to send international money transfers, said remittances back to Mexico and Central America are way down. In November, about 50 people came in every day and now just about 20, she said, speaking Thursday morning in an empty store.
The amounts that customers typically send each month has also dropped by the hundreds.
"There have been people coming in here with $20 bills just to help feed their family," she said. "Before, the minimum was $100 or $150."
Day laborers face long odds of getting work as they wait by the Monument Boulevard McDonalds on Thursday Feb. 12, 2009 in Concord, Calif. The Pew Hispanic Center released a report Thursday saying "the unemployment rate has increased more and the share of the working-age population that is employed has fallen more for immigrant Hispanics than for other racial and ethnic groups in the first year of the recession."
OK, I'm over it
El Hoppo Tougho...
Go back to Mexico and clean up the mess down there. Then you won’t need to invade our country.
Welcome to the new global prosperity...
Better
Help is on the way. The stimulus package will put them back to work [e-verify was taken out of the bill] and attract many more illegals as the construction projects go on line.
Saddle up guys and ride home. The party is over.
Maybe if you hurry, you can get you one of those deportation free bus asses.
Silver lining thread.
My local Home Depot has at least double the peasants from a year ago.
It should sicken every American that the illegal alien unemployment rate is lower than the American unemployment rate
But, I am sure the Economic Anti-Americans have some “spin” on this.
The illegal alien unemployment rate should be 100% or 0%...either no one hires them here...or they all return home.
So illegals, looked upon by democrats as sure-fire voters and by republicans as sure-fire cheap labor, are not doing well? Jobs are scarce? Gee...I wonder if the hundreds of billions stolen from taxpayers and spent on their free healthcare, anchor babies, social security, housing, food, clothing, etc could have anything to do with the economic times?
The tide comes in and trashes up the place, the tide goes out and deposits its trash along the way. We still need a breakwater.
They will not be “Illegal Immigrants” for long. Obama wants to make them citizens before the 2010 census.
Ping!
LOL. Me too...pass the Kleenex.
Even in these rough economic times, businesses prefer illegal aliens over the locals. And, as this statistic shows, enforcement is negligible.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.