← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · BlueBonnet
Thread ID: 19380 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2005-08-01
2005-08-01 21:52 | User Profile
I'm placing this here in Culture Wars vs Immigration because I feel that this is in effect another pull at our culture.
From the Charlotte Observer: [url="http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/business/12267958.htm"]http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/business/12267958.htm[/url]
Posted on Sun, Jul. 31, 2005
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[img]http://www.charlotte.com/images/common/spacer.gif[/img] Researcher says yes, calls for tougher laws, incentives for employers [img]http://www.charlotte.com/images/common/spacer.gif[/img]
The uncomfortable reality, as Andrew Sum sees it, is that there's a direct link between the steep national decline in teen employment rates and the growing practice of businesses hiring illegal immigrants and paying them off the books.
Sum is the director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University and lead author of a widely cited nationwide study projecting teen employment will continue to fall, with a drop to 36.7 percent this summer from 45 percent in 2000. That puts it at or near its lowest level since the data series began in 1948, despite a strengthening economy and improving overall labor market.
"The immigrant increase in employment is overwhelming. Every net new job created is taken by an immigrant. I know that's shocking, but that's the truth," Sum said, offering his sober assessment. "It happened in Massachusetts and New York in the 1990s, and now it's happening in the country as a whole."
That's not to say the sole reason teens are getting squeezed is that businesses are breaking the rules, going underground and hiring unskilled immigrants.
It's always been the case that some high school kids might not get work because they lack initiative, face racism or don't have a car.
Other empirical factors cited by Sum include recent reductions in government-sponsored employment programs and the "age twist," the historically unprecedented influx of workers 55 and older into the job market.
Teens also face increased competition from 20- to 25-year-old college graduates who have been driven into less attractive jobs unrelated to their fields.
But what has Sum particularly intrigued and concerned is the undeniable evidence that more American businesses are opting to expand profits and remain competitive by hiring low-cost undocumented workers instead of paying taxes, workers' compensation and even rudimentary health benefits for legal workers.
Businesses hired 3.7 million immigrant workers during the past five years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' current population survey, Sum said, noting research shows 50 percent to 60 percent arrived illegally. But in the same period, other BLS stats indicate 3.1 million people went on the books.
The 600,000 difference reflects a loss in employment of native-born workers, mostly among people younger than 30, Sum said, adding that the 55-and-older group is the only segment posting job gains.
Business owners also tell him they are more likely to hire immigrants than teens because immigrants are generally easier to recruit, work full time, work harder and remain loyal.
Sum said small businesses acknowledge that the Internal Revenue Service is getting wise and auditing more aggressively. But the chasm between official and unofficial employment in the nation continues to widen.
When jobs for teens become hard to get, the study concludes, "many simply stop looking and never enter the labor market in the first place," so they won't be classified as unemployed.
Which is disconcerting because "the more someone works in high school, the easier it is for them to find a job when they graduate, the more likely it is that they will work full time, the more likely it is that they will earn more money," Sum said.
Sum's solutions include stronger enforcement of immigration and business employer laws, tax credits to teen employers, and government funding for teen job programs, especially in the cities.