Free Republic

Next week is National Small Business Week, but owners aren’t likely to spend it celebrating — they’ll be too busy trying to hire workers or keep the ones they have from defecting to bigger firms. With a 3.6 percent unemployment rate, the lowest since December 1969, the labor market continues to thrive. “This is a worker’s job market,” said Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi. But Zandi adds that this is less-than-good news for the small companies that comprise the vast majority of U.S. businesses. “The risk or the concern would be at some point that businesses start to come...

When older workers participate in the job market, it not only lowers unemployment rates but, in an economy like today’s, it fills a vital skills gap in the labor force. A recent article from Reuters suggests that the economic boom of the past few years has been buoyed by Baby Boomers who have found their way back to the workforce. The report cites data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that says 3 million Americans over the age of 55 joined (or rejoined) the workforce over the past three years. For perspective, that makes up approximately 60% of the total...

A few years ago, Marriott debuted a new app at hotels in five cities that was supposed to save housekeepers time by telling them which rooms to clean. It was a disaster. Housekeepers ended up yo-yoing between rooms on different floors, ignoring messy rooms just down the hall. If anything, the cleaners felt that the app made them less efficient, and they worried about being disciplined by their bosses for failing to finish their work on time. “A wild-goose chase” is how Rachel Gumpert, a spokeswoman for Unite Here, the labor union that represents Marriott’s housekeepers, describes the episode. Several...

New York State (New York City in particular) can be a really expensive place to live. That’s why it’s particularly tough for many people to make ends meet if they’re earning minimum wage… or even less. That generally only applies to tipped employees like restaurant wait staff and bartenders. But never fear, ladies and gentlemen. There are powerful politicians and famous Hollywood stars out there fighting on your behalf. One of them from the latter category is actress and comedian Amy Schumer. She has connections to powerful politicians (like her Uncle Chuck) and the media alike, and she’s been...

Americans don't usually think of technical professionals as "guest workers," yet at any one time, there are more than a half-million foreigners holding tech jobs in the U.S. They are here thanks to the H-1B visa program. H-1B, so the official spiel goes, addresses an alleged shortage of "highly skilled" Americans to fill jobs "requiring specialized knowledge." Growing evidence, however, points to companies' using the program to replace perfectly qualified American workers with cheaper ones from elsewhere. A new report published by the Atlantic Council documents the abuses. The authors are Ron Hira, a political scientist at Howard University, and...

In his State of the Union address, President Trump announced, "All Americans can be proud that we have more women in the workforce than ever before." It was one of the few times he received a standing ovation from both Democrats and Republicans. I would not have stood and cheered. Either the president or whoever wrote that line honestly thought it was something worth celebrating, or the president simply wanted to say something that would sound wonderful to both Democrats and Republicans, as well as to Americans who do not otherwise support him. Whatever the reason, both the fact that...

The United States could suspend all legal immigration to the country for the next 40 years and maintain a workforce where there are still more than two U.S. workers for every one retiree, a new study finds. The latest study by the Center for Immigration Studies’ Steven Camarota reveals that despite claims by the big business lobby, Wall St., and corporate executives that mass legal immigration is necessary to maintain a sizeable workforce, current legal immigration trends have little to no impact on the working-age population. The workforce population is generally measured by the ratio showing the number of U.S....

The pro-mass immigration Koch brothers’ network of billionaire, donor class organizations is cheering President Trump’s recent doubling down on supporting increasing wage-crushing legal immigration levels. As Breitbart News reported, Trump broke from his 2015, 2016, and 2017 “America First” commitment to reduce overall legal immigration levels to raise the wages of America’s working and middle class this week when he doubled down on a call for increasing legal immigration. “We need people in our country because our unemployment numbers are so low and we have massive numbers of companies coming back into our country,” Trump reportedly told the media this...

A group of IT staffing companies with offices in India and the U.S. notched a victory in a legal fight with the U.S. government as a judge denied the government’s bid to throw out a lawsuit claiming the companies are being treated unfairly over their use of the controversial H-1B visa.

A few years ago, during a panel discussion at the 47th annual Congressional Black Caucus, U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) was the opening speaker on the topic of “Putting Black America to Work: the New Skilled Trade Workforce.” Lawrence noted that the industry supported by skilled trade workers will need an infusion of youth because the average age of workers was 53 years old. Rep. Lawrence said, “We are building a new bridge from Detroit to Windsor (Canada). I’ve been told we are bringing in welders from Vietnam to help build it.” It seems unfathomable that the United States, a...

... A new statement from the Office of Management and Budget provides cold comfort for federal bureaucrats worried that furloughs during the partial shutdown could become permanent layoffs, as long as Democrats refuse to give in and fund the border barrier. There will be no immediate layoffs (what the federal government calls reductions-in-force – or RIFs) if and when the current partial shutdown passes the 30 day mark in 4 more days. As I explained yesterday in Trump's shutdown trap?, federal law requires RIFs when federal employees are furloughed more than 30 days... This emphatically does not rule out the...

Almost half of the high-profile male figures ousted from powerful positions in business, government and the media and entertainment industries during the #MeToo movement have been replaced by women, according to a New York Times analysis. According to the Times's analysis, at least 200 men have lost jobs or "major roles" after facing public allegations of sexual misconduct in the year since sexual assault allegations against disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein helped bring the #MeToo movement to national prominence. Of those men, about 122 were replaced and 53 of those replacements were women. The Times analyzed the #MeToo movement's impact...

President Donald Trump’s deputies have announced they will soon cancel the work permits which were awarded to 100,000 foreign visitors under a controversial outsourcing program created by President Barack Obama. The planned November announcement of the cancellation will be a boost to millions of U.S. professionals — young and old — who lose opportunities, jobs, and salaries to the many visa-workers imported by companies and investors. Many U.S. graduates have already lost jobs and salaries because the federal government allows U.S. companies to outsource their jobs to a low-wage workforce of roughly 1.5 million imported college-graduates. The foreign workers —...

With new enforcement priorities under the Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are taking aim at employers that knowingly hire unauthorized immigrants. The most recent — and largest — bust happened at a trailer manufacturing plant in northeast Texas. Business had been booming at Load Trail LLC, about two hours northeast of Dallas, as customers bought the black trailers to haul hay bales, topsoil, construction refuse and oilfield equipment. Then came the ICE raid in late August. Inside Load Trail's huge production building, welders turn raw steel into trailers, amid cacophonous clanging and showers of sparks. It's brutish labor...

It’s taken nearly five years of administrative battles, legislative interference, and lawsuits, but the California state government has finally counted farm workers’ votes in a union election at the state’s largest fruit grower, Fresno-based Gerawan Farming. The final verdict, tallied on Tuesday, explains why the Jerry Brown administration and Democratic statehouse leaders did everything in their power to destroy the votes without counting them. The margin: 1,098 workers voted “no” to the United Farm Workers, with only 197 workers voting in favor of UFW representation. There still are 635 disputed ballots, but even the math geniuses in Sacramento can see...

During a town hall event on Wednesday night, Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) — running against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for the Senate seat — told a black American who questioned his support of illegal immigration that illegal aliens from Central America and Mexico are today’s cotton pickers. O’Rourke’s remarks were made after a black American asked the congressman if he supported illegal aliens being given U.S. citizenship despite breaking the country’s immigration laws. O’Rourke responded by saying that it is illegal aliens who are working at cotton gins today.

Silicon Valley giant Google employs nearly 10,000 foreign workers, importing them to the United States on visas, a newly leaked video obtained by Breitbart News reveals. The video is a full recording of Google’s first all-hands meeting following the 2016 presidential election in which President Trump historically beat out Democrat Hillary Clinton. These Google meetings occur on a weekly basis and are known inside the company as “TGIF” meetings, short for “Thank God It’s Friday.” In the Google meeting, Vice President of People Operations Eileen Naughton reveals the extent to which the tech conglomerate has imported and currently employs close...

This year, Tuesday, August 7, is Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, which marks how long a black woman has to work into 2018 to catch up to the same amount a white man made in 2017. The day is months later than National Equal Pay Day, which marks the same thing for women generally. This year, Equal Pay Day was on April 10, meaning that for women overall, it takes 16 months to match what white men make in 12. But these numbers change considerably for women of color. Black women, for example, needed 20 months to reach equal pay....

Federal authorities Thursday announced the arrest of 13 people they say were ringleaders in a massive scheme to exploit illegal immigrants as cheap labor on farms and Hispanic-oriented businesses in Minnesota and Nebraska. They also carried out search warrants on 11 of the businesses Wednesday and nabbed 133 illegal immigrant workers they found at the time. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said they suspect some of the migrants were coerced into working in rough conditions, either by force or threats of being reported to authorities for deportation...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers Wednesday issued criminal arrest warrants for 17 employers and other individuals charged with exploiting illegal immigrant employees in six Nebraska communities during a series of raids that swept up 133 workers. The operation, which also impacted two communities in Minnesota, was directed at employers and workers in O'Neill, Atkinson, Stromsburg, Ainsworth, Bartlett and Royal. Search warrants were also issued in Las Vegas. Businesses in Nebraska included a tomato greenhouse operation, restaurants, a grocery store, a grain company, a cattle company, farms and ranches.