One in five workers born abroad; their jobless rate down..
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washingtonpost.com
One in Five Area Workers Born Abroad
Group's Jobless Rate Down Since 2000, Analysis Finds
By D'Vera Cohn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 2, 2004; Page B01
The region's immigrant labor force is growing rapidly despite the economic slowdown, according to unpublished government figures showing that one in five workers in the Baltimore-Washington area, from office cleaners to computer programmers, was born outside the United States.
Figures from a census survey indicate that immigrants -- especially people who have arrived in the United States since 2000 -- accounted for most of the recent growth in the ranks of area jobholders. In 2000, immigrants accounted for 15 percent of working people in the region. By 2003, they accounted for 20 percent. The figures, analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies, indicate that the unemployment rate dipped for immigrants during that period, even as overall unemployment rose.
"This is the right place to be right now," said Hugo Carballo, a Northern Virginia construction union official who said he receives 10 to 15 calls a day from recently arrived immigrants looking for employment. "The pay is not bad, and there is plenty of work."
The numbers underline the growing role played by immigrants in the economy, but also raise questions about the impact on native-born workers. That debate flared nationally last month after President Bush proposed creation of a major temporary-worker program to accommodate foreign-born labor.
The immigration surge is particularly noticeable in Maryland and Virginia, where the economy is stronger than it is nationally. A recent report by Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies said the two states are among 14 that have attracted 80 percent of the nation's new foreign-born workers since 2000.
Immigration hit record levels during the hot job market of the 1990s but now seems linked less to U.S. economic conditions than to the drawing power of family networks here and to war, poverty and lack of opportunity elsewhere.
The census figures also show that immigration -- legal and illegal -- has not slowed despite listless U.S. job growth and tightened border enforcement. Both the Center for Immigration Studies and the Northeastern University report said recently arrived foreign-born workers have made up most of the net growth in the national workforce since 2000.
Although most immigrants are in the United States legally, illegal immigration is at an all-time high. The Urban Institute estimates that the nation has 9.3 million illegal immigrants, up from 8.5 million in 2000, with perhaps 100,000 to 200,000 in the Washington area. Some experts said that tougher border policing has discouraged people without legal papers from leaving for short visits because of fear they won't be able to get back in.
"I would say that for every one person we hire, we have one person [applying] who did not have the proper work authority," said Steve Steinberg, general manager of the Hilton Garden Inn in Fairfax County. "There's just a huge group of people who do not have temporary work visas."
Steinberg said his hotel usually does not have to advertise to find legal workers for jobs such as entry-level cleaners, who make $8 an hour. In most cases, "somebody will know somebody -- a neighbor or family member," he said.
CASA of Maryland, a community organization that offers a variety of programs for immigrants, saw a temporary drop in attendance at its twice-weekly orientation meetings for new arrivals after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But enrollment is back up to the usual 80 to 100 people, director Gustavo Torres said.
"People mostly come from the same countries in Latin America," he said. "Now I am seeing a tremendous increase in people from Colombia due to the political and economic situation. Also a lot of people from Africa -- that didn't happen before."
Eliazar Villatoro, 31, who lives with his wife and daughter in Silver Spring, said that life here is not easy but that it is an improvement over his home country, El Salvador.
"It's better to live right here because right here you get dollars," said Villatoro, who works as a waiter on weekends and teaches literacy to other Spanish-speakers on weeknights. For most work, he said, "the minimum payment per hour is like $6. In my country, you can get, for one hour, 25 cents."
Villatoro and his family moved here last year from Atlanta, which he did not like because, he said, Hispanic people often are harassed by the police. Of course, it costs more to live in the United States, he said, but he still is able to send $600 a month home to El Salvador, where two of his daughters live with his mother-in-law.
During recent decades, immigrants have reshaped the workforce in industries such as construction and hotel housekeeping that once were heavily African American. The 2000 Census showed that nearly half the region's immigrants had come to the United States in the previous decade, a far higher share than for the country as a whole.
The foreign-born population in the region also is more diverse than it is nationally, and better educated. Latin Americans, the largest group regionally and nationally, account for more than half the nation's immigrants but for less than 40 percent locally, according to 2000 Census figures. The area also has a fast-growing population from Africa, as well as large numbers from Asia and elsewhere. Although a substantial share of area immigrants do not have a high school degree, most of the region's foreign-born workers have at least some college education -- an exception to the national pattern.
"I know a physician from Guatemala who right now is working in construction," said Walter Rodriguez, a Uruguayan-born counselor with the Foreign-Born Information and Referral Network, a nonprofit group based in Columbia. "I know a lady who is a speech therapist who is working as a waitress.
"People who are willing to do whatever is available will get a job fairly quickly. People who are picky will have a little trouble getting a job. There are so many available that employers can fire those people and they very quickly can get another one."
Although immigrants take a range of jobs, Steven A. Camarota, research director of the Center for Immigration Studies, said their impact is greater at the less-skilled end, where they account for one in four area workers with a high school degree or less. That may be because less-educated Americans are older, and many are recently retired. But some immigrants could be displacing U.S.-born workers, said Camarota, whose organization favors greater limits on immigration.
Economists said competition from immigrants does hurt some U.S.-born workers, mainly the least skilled. Some labor leaders once pushed this issue, though most now actively recruit immigrants. In the Washington area, even groups that want to limit immigration agree that there is little worker-organized opposition to it.
Nathan Price, who heads an organization of D.C. taxicab drivers, said some U.S.-born drivers complain to him that immigrants have "tarnished the industry" by overcharging, refusing to pick up African American customers and other practices.
"There is a resentment," Price said. "I don't hold it myself. I hold it for those drivers who come here illegally."
Some union leaders agree that many employers prefer to hire immigrants, believing they are more willing to work overtime or come to work on short notice. "There's a real exploitative side to this," said Dennis Dezman, secretary-treasurer of Laborers Local 11, which represents area construction workers. "If a person's immigrant status is unclear, you don't want to complain if you get into an accident . . . something that would drive an American to worker's compensation or unemployment insurance."
The continuing immigration during hard times has reenergized the debate among academics and others about the impact not only on U.S. workers, but also on the nature of work. Does the availability of cheap labor allow an employer to avoid investing in more-efficient equipment or technology because five men using shovels, for example, cost the same in expenditures for wages and equipment as one man with a backhoe? Would some jobs even exist if it were not for foreign-born workers willing to take them?
"New York yuppies are used to having someone to clean up after them," said Muzaffar A. Chishti, director of an office of the Migration Policy Institute at the New York University School of Law, explaining that immigrant laborers have enabled some services to thrive. "People are used to being driven everywhere. They want fresh-squeezed orange juice at 4 in the morning."
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