Despite What Advocates of Illegal Immigration Say, There are No Jobs Americans Wont Do, Says Study
By Adam Brickley
CNSNews.com
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/print/53058
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
A study released by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) shows that native-born Americans fill the majority of jobs in almost every field. According to the CIS, this debunks the idea that immigrants are required to do jobs that Americans would refuse.
The study — titled Jobs Americans Dont Do? — found that only four occupations in the United States employ a majority immigrant workforce. The findings also showed that a vast majority of occupations, including many low-skill jobs, are filled mostly by native-born Americans.
It looks like pretty much every job, including the worst paying, the toughest jobs you can think of, are done, typically overwhelmingly, by Americans — even jobs that you might think are overwhelmingly done by foreign-born people, said Steven Camarota, director of research for the organization.
The only occupational categories which were found to have majority-immigrant workforces were plasterers and stucco masons (56 percent immigrant), graders and sorters, agricultural products (54 percent), misc. personal appearance workers (53 percent), and tailors, dressmakers and sewers (51 percent).
In addition, two occupational categories were found to have workforces that were exactly 50 percent immigrant: miscellaneous agricultural workers, including animal breeders, and sewing machine operators.
In addition to this study, CIS simultaneously released another study, titled Worse Than It Seems, which analyzed unemployment and underemployment rates among both immigrants and native-born Americans.
America appears to have an over-supply, and over-abundance of less educated workers, Camarota told CNSNews.com.
Not only are so many not working, but the share not working has been going up for 30 years, and wages for such workers have either stagnated in real terms or actually declined very significantly, he added.
The study found that immigrants, native-born Americans, and the total population all have a 9.7 rate of unemployment. However, native born Hispanic Americans have a 13.3. percent rate of unemployment, and African-Americans suffer 15.8 percent unemployment. By comparison, Hispanic immigrants have only an 11.1 percent unemployment rate higher than the national average but less than native born Hispanics.
The overall trend is clear, he added, less educated Americans work less and less, and they generally make less and less than they used to.
Other findings from the studies:
— There are 93 occupations in which 20 percent or more of workers are immigrants. These high-immigrant occupations are primarily, but not exclusively, lower-wage jobs that require relatively little formal education.
— More than 23.5 million native-born Americans work in high-immigrant occupations (occupations 20 percent or more immigrant.) These occupations include 19 percent of all native workers.
— Most native-born Americas do not face significant job competition from immigrants, the report noted, however, those who do “tend to be less-educated and poorer than those who face relatively little competition from immigrants.”
— In high-immigrant occupations, 57 percent of native-born workers have no more than a high school education. In occupations that are less than 20 percent immigrant, 35 percent of natives have no more than a high school education. And in occupations made up of less than 10 percent immigrant, only 26 percent of native-born workers have no more than a high school education.
— The average wage or salary for native-born Americans in high-immigrant occupations is one-quarter lower than in occupations that are less than 20 percent immigrant.
The study also found that 44 percent of medical scientists are immigrants, as are 34 percent of software engineers, 27 percent of physicians, and 25 percent of chemists.
The report also noted that only 10 percent of reporters are immigrants, as are 6 percent of lawyers and judges and 3 percent of farmers and ranchers.
Calls for comment from several immigrant-rights groups were not returned.
