13.6 Looking Ahead: Laborers Who Are Undocumented
Elizabeth B. Pearce
We have spent much of this chapter focused on gender and socioeconomic status. What about another group that often earns low wages? These are the workers, often immigrants, who work in seasonal or other low-wage jobs. One of the most debated topics in the United States is immigration. However, when it comes to the workforce, there is a consistent need for additional employees in farms, factories, hotels, and other industries. One way that this labor need has consistently been met is via immigrant labor, as discussed in Chapter 8 and Chapter 10.
It is not only laws that work institutionally to foster immigration but also businesses and corporations. In this excerpt of an article from The Conversation, applied research demonstrates how businesses and corporations value the contribution of immigrant laborers.
In Focus: A Preference for the Undocumented
My colleagues and I have conducted research in U.S. communities where undocumented Latinx immigrants live and work, including interviews with their employers. We focused on small businesses in rural Colorado and Georgia. We investigated how and why entrepreneurs in construction, landscaping, and low-wage service industries began actively seeking to hire undocumented Latino immigrants starting in the mid-1990s, even though immigrant workers were largely absent from these places prior to that time.
What started for many as a short-term solution to fill a labor gap turned into a preference for hiring undocumented workers. Recruitment efforts thus intensified, causing a significant growth in the Latino immigrant population in both places. In a rural Georgia county, the Latino population increased 1,760% between 1990 and 2010, due to the increase in these recruitment efforts by businesses involved in construction, landscaping, cleaning, and food provision.
Why did businesses that rely on low-wage workers develop a preference for immigrants, particularly undocumented ones?
In interviews, employers describe the undocumented Latino immigrants they hire as among the most reliable, honest, and hardworking employees they have ever had. As one Georgia employer described it:
I think about, if I had to get rid of the nine Hispanics that I’ve got tomorrow and replace them with locals, to get the same amount of output, I would have to hire 15 instead of nine and I’d probably have to pay them $1 an hour more each, and that figures up quick. And there’s sometimes that you just can’t find people to do the work.
Most employers we interviewed began by the late 1990s to organize their businesses around the productivity and discipline offered by an undocumented immigrant workforce.
Licenses and Attributions for Looking Ahead: Laborers Who Are Undocumented
Open Content, Original
“Looking Ahead” by Elizabeth B. Pearce. License: CC BY 4.0.
Open Content, Shared Previously
“In Focus: A Preference for Undocumented” is from “Trump’s Wall Ignores the Economic Logic of Undocumented Immigrant Labor” by Lise Nelson in The Conversation. License: CC BY-ND 4.0.
a socially constructed expression of a person’s sexual identity which influences the status, roles, and norms for their behavior.
a systematic investigation into a particular topic, examining materials, sources, and/or behaviors.