Anecdotal information is fine, but here are the facts:
Among the findings:
Of the 472 civilian occupations, only six are majority immigrant (legal and illegal). These six occupations account for 1 percent of the total U.S. workforce. Moreover, native-born Americans still comprise 46 percent of workers even in these occupations.
Many jobs often thought to be overwhelmingly immigrant (legal and illegal) are in fact majority native-born:
Maids and housekeepers: 51 percent native-born
Taxi drivers and chauffeurs: 58 percent native-born
Butchers and meat processors: 63 percent native-born
Grounds maintenance workers: 64 percent native-born
Construction laborers: 66 percent native-born
Porters, bellhops, and concierges: 72 percent native-born
Janitors: 73 percent native-born
There are 67 occupations in which 25 percent or more of workers are immigrants (legal and illegal). In these high-immigrant occupations, there are still 16.5 million natives — accounting for one out of eight natives in the labor force.
High-immigrant occupations (25 percent or more immigrant) are primarily, but not exclusively, lower-wage jobs that require relatively little formal education.
In high-immigrant occupations, 59 percent of the natives have no education beyond high school, compared to 31 percent of the rest of the labor force.
Natives tend to have high unemployment in high-immigrant occupations, averaging 14 percent during the 2009-2011 period, compared to 8 percent in the rest of the labor market. There were a total of 2.6 million unemployed native-born Americans in high-immigrant occupations.
Some may think that native-born workers in high-immigrant occupations are mostly older, with few young natives willing to do such work. But 34 percent of natives in these occupations are age 30 or younger, compared to 27 percent of natives in the rest of labor force. It is worth remembering that not all high-immigrant occupations are lower skilled. For example, 36 percent of software engineers are immigrants as are 27 percent of physicians.
A number of politically important groups tend to face very little job competition from immigrants (legal and illegal). For example, just 10 percent of reporters are immigrants, as are only 6 percent of lawyers and judges and 6 percent of farmers and ranchers. Estimates of Illegal Immigrants
We find that there are no occupations in the United States in which a majority of workers are illegal immigrants.
Illegal immigrants work mostly in construction, cleaning, maintenance, food service, garment manufacturing, and agricultural occupations. However, the overwhelming majority of workers even in these areas are native-born or legal immigrants.
Although illegal immigrants comprise a large share of workers in agriculture, farm workers are only a tiny share of the total labor force. Consistent with other research, just 5 percent of all illegal immigrants work in agriculture.
I don’t really believe my anecdotal evidence disagrees with your statistical evidence but it don’t tell the whole story.
When you have a big construction job in a less populated area, two thirds of the labor is pulled from local and nearby companies. A third, however, is hired “off the bank” to make up the full number needed. What I have seen is that local farm boys and guys from small towns can’t cut these tough jobs, or don’t want to, or are just unable to make the effort to do what is required. So, out of immigrant populations, often transient, a population that doesn’t comprise 5% of the available work force, those immigrants make up 75% of that 33% that are hired for the full volume of the project.
A project that takes a high number of people in various trades with a 150 man work force has had about 800 cycle through as the various trades are used. Out of that 800, 520 are that two thirds that are in the area and your figures indicate that up to 75% are immigrants and that is 315. However, out of the 280 that are hired from local unemployed a disproportionate amount come from immigrants that “are willing to do the work” — an additional 210 of the 280 hired locally.
Therefore out of the 280 hired local, only 70 end up being local guys out of the itinerant workforce in the area. The rest of locals stay on welfare because they will not do this type of work or when they try, they turn out to be unsuited.
Are there places where factories want to set up and pay 12.00 per hour, there sure are and to hell with them. However, we have a large part of our workforce that is unsuitable for work and the specifics of the stories tell us why where the statistics don’t.