
Small Businesses Lament There Are Too Few Mexicans in U.S - clbjnstn
http://www.wsj.com/articles/small-businesses-lament-there-are-too-few-mexicans-in-u-s-not-too-many-1480005020
======
swiftisthebest
Hey, you know that lazy generation of kids coming through college right now
without any experience actually holding a job? What if, bear with me here,
what if, instead of illegal immigrants from all over the world who can work
for less than minimum wage (because they're already breaking the law by
working here in the first place), what if instead of illegal immigrants taking
those jobs, American youth actually held jobs and got experience working?
Wouldn't that be nuts? Oh you probably think Americans don't want those jobs,
right? They don't. At least, not for less than minimum wage, because that's
illegal and nobody wants to have that on their record. But teenagers
definitely want money. Everybody does.

Imagine a world where there is ZERO illegal immigration to the US. Teenagers
actually might learn the value of hard work. They might go to college with a
strong work ethic and marketable skills. We might just be able to dig
ourselves out of this massive college debt crisis.

~~~
mcnees287
You assume available jobs are located near where teenagers live? In many cases
the jobs are located in remote areas with small populations (most agricultural
work).

Also, I want mine and your teenagers to be studying and preparing for their
futures. These are jobs with limited upside, for the most part.

~~~
yummyfajitas
These jobs aren't located near where Mexicans live either - they are actually
on the wrong side of a heavily policed border in an entirely different
country.

~~~
taneq
I'm not sure I agree with the whole chain of logic, but at this point is seems
fair to point out that the Mexicans aren't enrolled at a university that
requires them to turn up for classes.

------
a3n
> In Dallas, the King of Texas Roofing Co. says it has turned down $20 million
> worth of projects in the past two years because it doesn’t have enough
> workers.

Doesn't that mean that they aren't paying high enough wages?

~~~
mcguire
" _In 2015, the average wage for roofers was $17.65 per hour, according to the
BLS. Mr. Braddy says he has already raised wages twice this year, putting most
of his workers above $20 an hour._ "

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Roofing is difficult and dangerous work. It makes sense that pay would be
high.

~~~
a3n
Dangerous to the point that not even $20/hour gets him enough workers. That's
a job that cries out for automation.

~~~
collyw
sudo apt-get install roofer should do it.

------
bobbybobbybob
Scarcity of building contractors will push up contract values until supply
meets demand - and people actually get paid more. This is how the market is
supposed to work.

~~~
literallycancer
The market isn't "supposed" to work like anything. It just works some way,
just as gravity does. It doesn't have feelings, it doesn't have preferences,
it just is.

You may support some nativist policies since they are advantageous for the
group you are part of, but why try to make it sound like it's some kind of
universally just way to do things?

~~~
IndianAstronaut
People always seem to forget about this.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy)

------
DarkKomunalec
I see a lot of comments to the tune of "Well, don't foreigners deserve work
too?" \- that may be so, but isn't it a countries' duty to place the interests
of its own citizens first?

~~~
Filligree
To a degree, specifically the degree to which those citizens want them to, but
the world becomes a better place when we push tribalism to the sidelines.

Allowing illegal immigration isn't the way to do it, however. The _most_
important job of a state is to provide a level, predictable playing field.

~~~
DarkKomunalec
"but the world becomes a better place when we push tribalism to the
sidelines."

It seems we're putting the cart before the horse however - allowing
immigration first, and trying (unsuccessfully) to get rid of tribalism second.
See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Putnam#Diversity_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Putnam#Diversity_and_trust_within_communities)

~~~
Filligree
Yeah. Unfortunately we don't know how to do this well, and it seems like
political correctness (and fear of failure) is keeping us from experimenting.

I don't have any good answers here. People can't even agree on what their goal
is.

------
throwaway13337
I guess they'll have to start paying them more. Maybe it will approach a
decent living wage?

What a tragedy.

~~~
devoply
The problem with small business is that the way the economy is set up most of
the money is available at the medium to big business side of things. Small
business does not have the capital to pay employees properly. So really it
should not exist in the way the economy is structured. So it won't exist if
you take cheap labour out of the picture. It's not as if small business robber
barons are making bank on the back of poor workers. They are not. They are
barely surviving.

~~~
throwaway13337
Yes small businesses employ a lot of low skill labor and therefore are hit in
the short term the hardest with a lack of labor surplus.

In the long term, this is necessary for wages to rise. When all restaurants
have to compete for a diminishing labor pool, they'll have have to raise their
prices to pay people decently.

This is a good thing.

~~~
wslh
Beyond this specific case, the problem is the unfair competition for human
resources between small and big companies. For example, how can you compete
with Google for a software engineer? The unfair part is that Google can
establish a company in Ireland to avoid taxes while you can barely organize
your taxes.

I am not saying there are no ways to compete (e.g. give more equity, sell a
startup dream) but that the inequalities are not only between the rich and
poor gap, they are present in companies too.

~~~
devoply
It's not just that. It's that big business can have economies of scale which
allows it to push out each unit at a cheaper price point. This then trains
consumers to want things at certain price points which then makes it difficult
or impossible to compete with larger companies. Further it is much easier for
larger business to get investor money and debt financing, so if they want to
expand it's much easier for them to do so than for small business. Also for
B2B it's again much easier for big business because most of the spending done
in the economy is by big business, and they don't care that much about price
as consumers and can afford a lot more because they have lots saved up. So
there are many factors that favor big business and shut out the little guy who
is doing it because he wants more autonomy in his life.

------
ap3
In This Article: businesses that exist by ignoring US immigration law

Imagine being a roofing company trying to compete against King of Texas
roofing Co and their low wages?

~~~
mcguire
$20/hour? According to the article, the average is $17.95.

------
TheCondor
Easy to solve, isn't it? Mandatory withholding with felony consequences.
Felony to hire an illegal. Create an IRS verification program, the post office
could do it, let them notarize documents if some one wants to claim more than
two deductions for tax withholding purposes.

------
SixSigma
$30bn per year leaves the US economy via wages to immigrant workers
sending/taking it back to their home countries.

$25bn to Mexico alone, that's 2% of their GDP

[http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-04-05/trump-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-04-05/trump-
would-make-mexico-pay-for-wall-by-blocking-money-transfers)

[http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/migrationremittancesdiaspo...](http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/migrationremittancesdiasporaissues/brief/migration-
remittances-data)

~~~
hyperpape
You've identified part of the negative. Now what are the positive aspects?
Cheaper buildings and labor for US companies, which improves their
competitiveness against international competition, increased agricultural
exports, cheaper services for American citizens.

You haven't even attempted to estimate the value of any of these things.
You've just cherry picked one number. Your conclusion may or may not be
accurate, but without trying to analyze both the costs and benefits, your way
of arguing doesn't contribute much.

~~~
SixSigma
I didn't draw and conclusions, I just presented one bullet point of note and
linked to the conclusions of experts.

> Cheaper buildings and labor for US companies, which improves their
> competitiveness against international competition, increased agricultural
> exports, cheaper services for American citizens.

Illegal immigrants pay no tax, no welfare contributions, are not protected
under employment laws, work long hours with no holidays. Slavery increases
your international competitiveness and provides cheaper domestic services too.

Our forefathers fought bloody battles against the excessive worker
exploitation. Let's not slip back into the dark days. Although I do question
the benefit of minimum wage.

------
partycoder
Well, you can speak of how markets would balance themselves. Sure... but in
the short term:

\- Some people have built their business model on top of cheap labor. You take
away the cheap labor, then the business model does not work anymore.

\- Some other businesses, rely on cheap products and services. If you make
those products more expensive, their business model doesn't work either.

People would say then, "that's a good thing, because now supply and demand,
wages go up, prices go up, etc...". Well, not so fast.

Local producers are not alone in the world. Instead of paying more, you will
just start importing from cheaper countries. Does that help the local economy?
probably not.

------
Shivetya
If there is a business need then work in Washington to come up with a solution
for legal immigration. This means having people go through embassies to get
permission to immigrate. Heck have sponsorship by companies needing the
workers or agencies willing to front them. Just like H1B those who come here
need to not only be legal but not adversely affect employment opportunities
for those already here.

------
outerspace
Tech companies complain there aren't enough high-skilled workers. Small
businesses lament there are too few low-skilled workers. In the end, they are
both saying the same thing: they want more workers for less money.

------
narrator
I heard about this second hand from some Bay Area residents in their 70s: Back
in the 60s a lot of the hippy communes were able to take over old run down
mansions in the Bay Area in Marin and San Francisco. These mansions got run
down because, due to no illegal immigration, construction and maintenance were
very expensive and keeping old houses up was astronomically expensive.

------
danbruc
The problem is not a lack of cheap workers, the problem is the low wages.
Someone doing hard or unpleasant work should bring home a six figure salary,
not a developer sitting in a nice air-conditioned office.

~~~
swiftisthebest
It isn't how hard you work. It's how much value you provide that determines
your salary.

You can work really hard smacking rocks together. It provides no value to the
world at large, and thus, you cannot get paid to do it.

~~~
danbruc
The price is not only determined by value but also by scarcity. If there is a
lot of demand for unskilled work, then wages will go down and the business
owner can capture the difference between the value produced and the wages
paid.

It is of course more or less by design that several factors go into the price
so that different feedback loops can affect different factors in an
intertwined way. For example high demand for specific skills is supposed to
lead to higher wages which in turn is supposed to encourage more people to
acquire those skills which then finally satisfies the demand.

And in theory this is all fine but in reality it is not as easy as in the
economics text book. Some of those feedback loops are slow and take years to
react, some of the factors are constraint in one way or another and just can
no go where one would like them to be.

And the article is not talking about smacking rocks, it is talking about
building houses and producing food, things fundamentally more valuable than
building websites. And if you are doing work that is valuable and physically
demanding, then you should be able to demand compensation for your hard work
and not have to accept whatever you are offered but that of course fails if
people undercut each in order to get the job.

I am not sure that it is even possible to [easily] decouple price factors like
value and scarcity without ruining the entire system, but one has to admit
that at least in practice and at least in some situations mixing value and
scarcity leads to undesirable results.

~~~
swiftisthebest
If what you say is true and you believe it, then surely you're for deporting
all illegal immigrants who artificially deflate wages by working for less than
is legal.

~~~
danbruc
That does not follow from what I said, you can also just declare them legal
and enforce paying them minimum wages. Heck, you can even try to keep them
illegal and enforce minimum wages, if you discover an illegal immigrant
working below minimum wage just go after the employer and leave the worker
alone.

And I am not a US citizen or living in the USA, so I have no stakes in what
happens to illegal immigrants in the USA and in turn also no well-founded
opinion. On the one hand there is the law and if you violate it, you have to
deal with the consequences, so there is certainly a point for expelling
illegal immigrants.

On the other hand you probably should also take the lives of the immigrants
into account. Can you justify the consequences? Ripping families apart,
sending people back into unsafe futures or countries? And what about the
economic consequences?

Maybe the USA could pardon all current illegal immigrants while then being
more aggressive towards new ones? I really don't know what I would suggest,
that is not a topic I ever really thought about.

------
Synaesthesia
People making arguments about free markets must remember that they assume free
movement of labour - which we don't have.

------
stale2002
Whoa, so basically what this article is saying is that our increased border
enforcement efforts are working!?!

I guess walls do work.

------
austincheney
The US attitude towards immigration is completely asinine and driven by
ignorance. Immigrants are a huge sector in the economy.

This WSJ article, like so many others, is part of that ignorance in that it
isn't about low skill or low pay workers. It is about filling jobs, regardless
of pay rate, that US citizens are not willing to fill. A prime example is
software developers.

In the US software developers make 2x to 3x the national average pay rate for
full time labor. Despite the high pay rate and comfortable work environment
there is a massive demand for skills that is not being filled domestically.
From 1995-2005 there was a massive off-shoring to find low cost software
developers. Since 2010 the off-shoring is entirely about finding competent
employees to fill labor shortages opposed to reducing expenses. Americans are
not willing to step up and take these available software development jobs at a
level of competence demanded by employers regardless of pay rate.

A popular bitch-fest on reddit is that software developers are paid too low
and if they were paid more this problem would be magically solved. First of
all there is absolutely no evidence to suggest such. Secondly, software
developers are already paid well and still there are massive shortages with
high attrition. These problems are not related to pay rates, but are deeper
rooted issues more related to outdated skills, low confidence, missing
initiative, and poor education. These deeper problems are a hard pill to
swallow considering they require some amount of time and investment and still
result in an substandard result.

~~~
yardie
I've looked into some of those jobs and the guys on Reddit are right. A lot of
those jobs don't pay shit. Developers will get paid 2-3x the national average
in major cities and tech hubs. Outside of that expect an honest offer of
38-45k.

I've been in that call with a recruiter trying to fill a job in flyover state.
I felt sorry for him because he really had an impossible task. He had gone
through surrounding towns and states slowly widening that circle until he was
now trying to find talent on the coasts. His client needed a developer with SC
clearance but was offering low pay, stale benefits, and no relocation. No
wonder he was having problems filling the job.

If you want skilled developers with modern skills be prepared to pay for it.

~~~
austincheney
I work in a major metropolitan area (one of the 4 largest in the US). There is
a large educated sector of the population and a huge number of software and
technology companies here. Still, despite this, technology jobs cannot be
filled. Half my coworkers have always been immigrants. Even when pay is high
local people are not stepping up to fill the positions.

If you are in technology you can only continue to ignore that you work with a
large number of immigrants and offshore teams for so long. Eventually, you
will have to keep up with current skills, move to a low income market, or be
content with being replaced by an immigrant who has more initiative.

> If you want skilled developers with modern skills be prepared to pay for it.

There is no evidence that increased rates have solved this problem as demand
continues to outpace availability.

~~~
geebee
What do you mean by "high" wages? Would you post your region, along with the
BLS salary for a software developer, a physician, lawyer, nurse practitioner,
and dentist?

For dallas, here are the numbers:

[http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#00-0000](http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#00-0000)

Nurse Practitioner: $101,260 Software Developer: $97,930 Dentist: $177,130
Lawyer: $132,380 Physicians and Surgeons: $202,450

I understand there are some big differences here, and you could reasonably
argue that software developers don't deserve such high wages (they often have
graduate degrees but aren't strictly required to, for example). But this does
show you the kind of options available in the US to those motivated,
confident, educated people with initiative you described in an earlier post.

Personally, I think that if employers are having trouble getting people _with
choice_ to work as software developers, that's the market's answer. There are
a lot of different perspectives on this - I personally don't have a problem
with immigration, but I have a huge problem with coercing immigrants to work
as software developers as a condition of living in the US.

That's the real appeal of these corporate controlled immigration programs -
create a pool of engineers who aren't allowed to go into higher paying fields.
Free people are allowed to go to law school, open a sandwich shop, sell real
estate, whatever they like. In response to market signals.

You know free markets, freedom, personal choice. Corporations hate that stuff.
So they've invented this fake story of a "shortage", as if this shortage isn't
a rational response among free people to the pay and working conditions that
are below what they can earn in other fields. And their solution is to use a
coercive visa program to create a pool of workers who don't have this freedom.

~~~
austincheney
> I understand there are some big differences here, and you could reasonably
> argue that software developers don't deserve such high wages (they often
> have graduate degrees but aren't strictly required to, for example).

In my opinion this is the root of the problem. Schools are not preparing
students with many of the practical skills of software development. These
students enter the market with skills businesses claim to want, but often
don't match with the reality of the position, platform, or technology.
Businesses could solve this problem themselves by training their work force,
but they don't. Instead it is entirely on the employee to get the skills (on
their own time) the current employer demands. As a result many developers burn
out and those who achieve this mastery of learning on their own time leave to
get higher paying jobs elsewhere. Why wouldn't they since they have invested
in themselves more so than the employer has, and such there is no loyalty
earned. The end result is a talent gap. A large pool of barely qualified
people that have trouble moving between employers and on the other side a
couple of talented folks who can do whatever they want.

