Jobs Americans Don't Want

Do you hear that refrain when people are talking about the illegal immigration problem? That all these people are only here taking jobs "American's don't want" or "American's won't do." How many ways is that wrong? Or if it isn't wrong, how many ways is it ultimately bad for everyone? Are we this stuck up, that there are jobs we just won't do? Are we so complacent that there are jobs that if they are available we won't take? If so, I think that bodes poorly for us.

Haven't these people seen Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel? Sure seem to be a lot of Americans doing some really crap ass gigs. Really I think this is about something else, where the jobs are, or what the jobs pay, but not flatly jobs American's won't take.

Recently on NPR they reported that in the industry with the absolute highest penetration of illegal workers, agriculture, 25% of all people working were here illegally. What does that mean? Well, for one thing it means that in every single possible job in the United States, at least 75% of the workers are American. That should just about wrap it up for the idea that there are gigs Americans won't do.

So really is it "wages Americans won't accept?" That would seem to be a little closer to the mark.

Maybe it has something to do with location and transportation. It does seem like someone motivated to come to say Detroit from Honduras would be more likely to get up and take a bus than someone just trying to go across town. Still, there's an element of enabling here.

I think maybe I don't see this like the majority of Americans. I've relocated for work four times now, lived in four different states. If I lost this job I would probably relocate again. People that do what I do go where the work is. I do think there's a certain amount of entitlement to work where the labor is in this country. Is it fair to expect people from one state to move to another state for work? For unskilled work? Does that assessment change when you figure in that there are people willing to relocate from another country for that work?

At the moment we hear two major solutions being offered to what is currently being perceived as an illegal alien crisis. I say perceived because it has been this way for a long time and its only recently that people have seems to get up in arms about it. At that rate, next week nobody could care again. Two solutions, first securing the border, and second provide for guest workers.

Talk about missing the forest for the trees.

How well exactly has securing the border worked with respect to the "war on drugs?" There is a whole lot of border there. One would assume that as long as there is a good reason to try to run it that people will, or tunnel under it, or come in on container ships, or jump out of airplanes, or FedEx themselves. For the right reward people will do just about anything. Hasn't "Survivor" proved that? Do we really want a hermetically sealed country, with armed guards and electric fences that go hundreds of feet underground? This seems to be a case where we must focus, long term on stemming the tide, not patching the dam.

Just how long do you think it will be until we see the investigative news report on mistreatment of guest workers, and how they feel they can't say anything for fear of being deported? A guest worker program just excuses the employers for what they are doing already. How much more work is it going to be for the government and employers to separate guest workers from illegals? Will there be a quota for guest workers? If so, I can't see how it will possible reduce illegal immigration.

By the way, what about the other end of the skill scale?

At the same time we're hearing that there is nobody to pick lettuce or wash dishes (or at least 25% of nobody) we're also being told that there's nobody to be tech workers or nurses. That employers need many more H1-B Visas to allow more skilled workers into the country.

If Americans won't pick lettuce or do other low level gigs, and they can't program computers or do other high level gigs, just what is it that Americans can do?

Its got me thinking of Hitchhiker's. Remember the Golgafrinchams? At this rate, we're all going to be on the second arc: real estate salesmen, security guards, management consultants, telephone sanitizers. Are all Americans slowly degenerating into a completely useless class of people? That would be a sad direction for a country with such a can-do past.

On the whole I think what we're hearing now is just so much noise. Its all probably calculated to still things up and make people feel worse off. Since we really were worse off all the time, just like with terrorism, I guess the recognition is a good thing. But also like terrorism, any kind of a quick fix is going to be a bandaid on a bullet wound. That's what we're most likely to get though: noise and then reflex legislation - usually with lousy enforcement and pork barrel financing. Its become the American way.

What will help? Nothing popular of course.

Enforcement of current employment legislation, prompt deportations, fines for employers - oh yeah, and the requisite rise in price of everything that is now subsidized by people making less than minimum wage because they can't complain. By the way, most of this is already on the books.

Transportation subsidies and relocation allowances so that people can go where the work is, probably with some smart planning with regard to housing values too so that people can live near the communities they need to work in.

Of course those things will also make prices go up. But really, if prices are low on the backs of illegals, shouldn't they go up?

H1-Bs? Education, education, education. More money, more money, more money. But isn't it worth it to keep the work here and to have the jobs filled with Americans?

These are infrastructure problems, they must be addressed with a long view. Our very way of living is changing. How Americans relate to their jobs will need to change as well. If we're not eager to make the effort, there are apparently millions of people in other countries that are.

None of this by the way makes me isolationist or anti-immigrant. I am certain that the immigration policies in place are just as convoluted, inefficient, and outmoded as the employment policies. They almost certainly need to be looked at together. But that the legal immigration process is obtuse is not an excuse to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration and employment violations.

Fix the infrastructure, eliminate the demand.