Wall Street Journal (Editorial): A labor problem is stalking parts of the U.S. economy, and we don't mean the awful 9.1% unemployment rate. It's a labor shortage, and a major cause is the crackdown on illegal immigration.
Even with high joblessness overall, shortages exist at both the high- and low-skilled ends of the labor market. At the high end, tech companies have trouble finding computer scientists and engineers. They need more visas for foreigners who study science and math in the U.S.
And at the low end, many employers can't find enough hands to pick their crops, bus tables, or in some places do construction. That's because thousands of laborers from south of the border have been scared away by U.S. immigration laws, leaving unfilled tens of thousands of jobs that few Americans seem to want.
Hardest hit here are farmers. Most of the 1.6 million agricultural laborers in America are Hispanic, and a majority of them are assumed to be undocumented immigrants. Without a steady pool of migrant labor during harvest season, farms have lost millions of dollars as crops have needlessly rotted.
In Washington state, apple orchards are running a radio recruitment campaign offering jobs that pay $100 to $150 per day, but so far with little success. Washington Governor Chris Gregoire said, "We're not getting anybody to take a bite on these jobs, so we don't have anybody to do these jobs." California avocado growers and Texas vegetable farmers are also desperate for help. Similar stories come from Colorado, Idaho, Oklahoma, Vermont and more.
Alabama was the latest state to implement a tough anti-immigration law this month. The Department of Justice sued to strike down the statute, and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals suspended parts of it, including a requirement for schools to check the immigration status of all students. But Alabama farmers and other businessmen say they're already feeling the labor squeeze. Governor Robert Bentley plays the problem down. "Those are anecdotal stories," the Republican told the Dothan Eagle newspaper. "It'll work itself out."
Yet across Alabama's eastern border, the impact has been far more than anecdotal. Georgia this spring passed a law that, among other steps, obliges employers to use the E-Verify system to check the legal status of prospective workers against a federal database. House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith of Texas introduced a bill this year that would take the Georgia E-Verify scheme nationwide. Within weeks of the Georgia law's adoption, farmers reported a shortfall of 11,000 workers, affecting perishable fruit and vegetable producers most of all, according to a survey by Georgia's agriculture department.
The estimated cost to the state's overall economy will be $391 million this year, according to a study released this month by the University of Georgia Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development. It found that some 3,260 full-time jobs were lost in food production and such related businesses as transport or packaging. While undocumented workers tend to pick the harvest, their labor creates many more jobs down the production stream. The study looked at the impact of a labor shortfall on seven specific crops and extrapolated the findings to Georgia's $11.3 billion agricultural economy.
Many states are resorting to desperate measures to find labor. Idaho and Arizona use incarcerated criminals to work the fields, and Georgia and Alabama are looking into it. Georgia initially tried to get people on probation into those jobs but found few takers. The work is strenuous, and experience matters, which is why farmers prefer to see the same immigrant employees coming back each year.
Migrant labor is highly sensitive to market signals. When the economic or political climate sours, they choose not to come or to avoid certain states. Over time, food producers can make a similar decision and move their operations overseas. Peaches don't have to be grown in Georgia, or lettuce in Yuma.
Republicans have made immigration control one of their main passions, yet they continue to ignore the economic costs. They claim to champion deregulation and business-led growth, but then they impose new hiring and enforcement burdens on any business's most important assets—its workers.
There's a better way. At the state level, stop treating Mexican fruit pickers like alien invaders. In Congress, overhaul the guest worker program to widen avenues for legal immigration, drop calls for obligatory E-Verify and offer those in the country without papers a way to become legal. The result would be fewer crops rotting in the fields, more jobs for Americans, faster economic growth, and fewer farmers taking their production overseas.
Even with high joblessness overall, shortages exist at both the high- and low-skilled ends of the labor market. At the high end, tech companies have trouble finding computer scientists and engineers. They need more visas for foreigners who study science and math in the U.S.
And at the low end, many employers can't find enough hands to pick their crops, bus tables, or in some places do construction. That's because thousands of laborers from south of the border have been scared away by U.S. immigration laws, leaving unfilled tens of thousands of jobs that few Americans seem to want.
Hardest hit here are farmers. Most of the 1.6 million agricultural laborers in America are Hispanic, and a majority of them are assumed to be undocumented immigrants. Without a steady pool of migrant labor during harvest season, farms have lost millions of dollars as crops have needlessly rotted.
In Washington state, apple orchards are running a radio recruitment campaign offering jobs that pay $100 to $150 per day, but so far with little success. Washington Governor Chris Gregoire said, "We're not getting anybody to take a bite on these jobs, so we don't have anybody to do these jobs." California avocado growers and Texas vegetable farmers are also desperate for help. Similar stories come from Colorado, Idaho, Oklahoma, Vermont and more.
Alabama was the latest state to implement a tough anti-immigration law this month. The Department of Justice sued to strike down the statute, and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals suspended parts of it, including a requirement for schools to check the immigration status of all students. But Alabama farmers and other businessmen say they're already feeling the labor squeeze. Governor Robert Bentley plays the problem down. "Those are anecdotal stories," the Republican told the Dothan Eagle newspaper. "It'll work itself out."
Yet across Alabama's eastern border, the impact has been far more than anecdotal. Georgia this spring passed a law that, among other steps, obliges employers to use the E-Verify system to check the legal status of prospective workers against a federal database. House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith of Texas introduced a bill this year that would take the Georgia E-Verify scheme nationwide. Within weeks of the Georgia law's adoption, farmers reported a shortfall of 11,000 workers, affecting perishable fruit and vegetable producers most of all, according to a survey by Georgia's agriculture department.
The estimated cost to the state's overall economy will be $391 million this year, according to a study released this month by the University of Georgia Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development. It found that some 3,260 full-time jobs were lost in food production and such related businesses as transport or packaging. While undocumented workers tend to pick the harvest, their labor creates many more jobs down the production stream. The study looked at the impact of a labor shortfall on seven specific crops and extrapolated the findings to Georgia's $11.3 billion agricultural economy.
Many states are resorting to desperate measures to find labor. Idaho and Arizona use incarcerated criminals to work the fields, and Georgia and Alabama are looking into it. Georgia initially tried to get people on probation into those jobs but found few takers. The work is strenuous, and experience matters, which is why farmers prefer to see the same immigrant employees coming back each year.
Migrant labor is highly sensitive to market signals. When the economic or political climate sours, they choose not to come or to avoid certain states. Over time, food producers can make a similar decision and move their operations overseas. Peaches don't have to be grown in Georgia, or lettuce in Yuma.
Republicans have made immigration control one of their main passions, yet they continue to ignore the economic costs. They claim to champion deregulation and business-led growth, but then they impose new hiring and enforcement burdens on any business's most important assets—its workers.
There's a better way. At the state level, stop treating Mexican fruit pickers like alien invaders. In Congress, overhaul the guest worker program to widen avenues for legal immigration, drop calls for obligatory E-Verify and offer those in the country without papers a way to become legal. The result would be fewer crops rotting in the fields, more jobs for Americans, faster economic growth, and fewer farmers taking their production overseas.
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