In the old days, kids learned workplace skills at an early age in such roles as:
1. Theater ticket takers
2. McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell
3. Roofing, asphalt, farming, delivering papers
ALL of the above are now dominated by illegal aliens, and it’s getting worse.
This means many have an entitlement mentality and don’t learn to behave and communicate well until later, if at all.
There is culture rot, sure, but another important part of this is an UNRESTRICTED INVASION BY ILLEGAL ALIENS.
Whom would you prefer to employ, a pimply immature brat or a more mature illegal desperate to earn ANYTHING and also scared to cause any trouble, owing to their questionable status.
The kids are rotten, sure, but the omnipresence of de-facto slaves is something the Chamber of Commerce might well PREFER AND ENJOY.
A real cost of illegal immigration is our young people are NOT getting exposed to early work experiences.
Ain't that the truth....used to be kids picked berries, beans and other crops during the summer...no can do much anymore...or they mowed lawns....oops, too dangerous, or people are afraid because they aren't paying the FICA, etc to the little wage earner. Government is the problem!
If there were no employers HIRING them, they wouldn't be here. The illegals only come where they KNOW they can find work. Very simple:
I agree except that the illegals are not de facto slaves. They do quite well working under the table, Momma’s got the full welfare ride and Jose works for cash. They take home more than me.
Kids and teens have so much energy and a lot of them would LOVE to work and have a good time doing it and building their own small businesses. The real problems come from when the regulations are insane, the endless problems with genuine lunatics running the street, and the nonstop leeching from the IRS and US government that keeps demanding more and more pay from workers in the form of taxes.
As for the illegals, throw them out and you’ll see American kids running to fill out an application.
parents feel so guilty about having to work that they don't dare ask little Billy or little Suzy to do anything at all...
Our area is one of them. High school and college kids still do all the jobs you describe. Our plant actually employs a number of high school graduates in production capacity who, once they get good at it, actually earn salaries comparable to the professional staff.
Still, they are hard to find even in this area, as opposed to impossible elsewhere.
Been an interviewer in a fortune 100 company. Seems the only (even somewhat) qualified people are H1B visa holders with green cards. The few “Americans” that come in tailor their (poor) resumes with keywords from the posted job description and try to bluff through the interviews. Employers who are smart do whatever they can to hold qualified employees, and the rest are wanderers. Go from job to job, no skills or desires to learn any. Many have a “You owe me” attitude that really sucks. I could write a book...
“ALL of the above are now dominated by illegal aliens, and it’s getting”
This is not a new problem. In the early 60s while attending the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, I lived in an upstairs apartment on the edge of town a few miles from campus. I rode my bicycle to campus. Funds were really tight. I was not adverse to low wage physical labor. There was an asparagus farm along one of the routes. It was spring & I knew that soon they would need some help to harvest the crop. I stopped by to apply. They said, “You don’t want that job. We have Mexicans to do that.”
This problem, as many with which we are now blessed dates back to FDR. The big war slurped up all the male youth from the nations farms for cannon fodder and the government imported Mexicans to do the work that there were no Americans to do. Cheap labor from south of the border has more or less been with us since then, some with legal permits, most under the table. It is a way to side step the minimum wage. The welfare rolls will vastly increase when the illegals become legal & must be paid minimum wage. Their jobs will go away.