www.csua.org/u/j56 -> blogs.wsj.com/economics/2007/07/10/report-illegal-hispanics-bear-housing-slump-brunt/
In a new report, economists at Deutsche Bank estimate construction employment should have fallen about 900,000 since early 2006 when in fact its only down 150,000. They conclude 500,000 of the unexplained gap is attributable to layoffs of illegal Hispanic workers. They say this means, first, that there is not a surge of job losses waiting to show up in the data. But it also means the job market is not as tight as the low unemployment rate suggests. They say the unemployment rate would be closer to 5% than its current 45% if these layoffs were properly accounted for. Unemployment Rate Peter Hooper, Torsten Slok, Michael McDonough and Sophia Yang of Deutsche Bank dispute many competing explanations for the disconnect between home building and construction employment. Errors in the Bureau of Labor Statistics birth/death model, which estimates job creation and destruction at new firms, can only account for 20,000 construction jobs, they say. Its unlikely many workers now classified as employed in residential construction have moved to commercial work because the type of work is so different, they say. Third, the notion that because of lags, the layoffs have yet to come, is starting to wear thin We are now 15 years into the slowdown . We find ourselves increasingly skeptical with the notion that construction companies have not yet recognized the severity of the situation. Deutsche Bank notes residential construction uses a lot of temporary workers who are cheap to hire and fire, and share many characteristics with illegal immigrants. They cite Pew Hispanic Center data that says the illegal Hispanic construction workforce grew from 800,000 in 2001 to 19 million in 2006. They then estimate the sensitivity of Hispanic employment to construction activity, and conclude it should have fallen by between 750,000 and 13 million since early 2006. BLS data show 300,000 legal Hispanic construction workers have already lost their jobs, so something like 500,000 undocumented workers may have lost theirs. Skeptics say the illegal workers werent undercounted during the housing boom, so their layoffs aren't being undercounted now. During the boom, housing construction rose 40% but construction employment increased by only about three-quarters of that. He doubts productivity improvements could explain the gap: if anything, he says, the rising share of illegal immigrants in the construction work force probably pulled productivity down. "At the peak of the building craze, a lot of temporary and likely undocumented folks were being hired, some of which had limited skills and experience," he said. "As in any economic boom, your more marginal, less productive workers tend find jobs at the peak, and productivity takes a hit."
com Everyone knows the construction, home improvement, home renovation, remodeling industries use illegal immigrants. I am surprised the economists/statisticians only realize this now.
It still is illegal immigrants "importductivity" as usual! During the boom, housing construction rose 40% but construction employment by only half that, and productivity improvements could only explain part of the gap, the report says.
Many of them do move between jobs a lot or even go back and forth to their country of origin. The IRS, incidentally, reportedly doesn't care a bit whether or not the individuals are "illegal" or not;
The reason I am asking is because I am a young man(22) who just purchased a house from them,(in Adelanto) but it already seems to be falling apart. There are already talks of a class-action lawsuit coming because so many people are not satisfied with the work.
Our company has lost a tremendous amount of business to illegals undercutting our subcontractors - I've seen hundreds of American subs go out of business due to the influx of illegals in Texas. The quality of work by the illegal market is horrible - "You get what you pay for"!
I had an addition built on my house and insisted that the work had to be done by Americans or other legals. The two lower bidders wouldn't agree, so I cost myself $8,000 on a $37,000 job. If a contractor will cheat on immigration laws, then he'll cheat on quality too.
when gas hits $10 a gallon in 09' you'll be hating life. Everyone else: I work at a union firm that the home builders are forced to hire for the roadwork and infrastructure. About 11% of the cost for a home was spent on workers earning prevailing wages. They only built the roads, sewers, storm drains and waterlines that connect to your underwater mortgage right now. Everything on your side of the sidewalk was hastley built by un-documented labor. I would watch them slap these boxes together while I built the infrastructure and I was not impressed. They were very careless about stepping on the thin copper tubes as they poured the floor slab. You don't want to know how sloppy everyhting above that went up.
Somebody made out hugely on these home-construction deals and it largely wasn't the construction worker or the homebuyer. It's been said in another forum that these homes are built so poorly on average since they weren't built for living in ... they were instead built for flipping from seller to buyer and then onward. Their value was tipped more and more towards being a vehicle for fraud, rather than for being an actual home. That US officials really don't bother with enforcing labor law, is enough of an indication about how the government feels about illegal aliens. The elites in our levels of government are far more concerned about serving corporate money than the actual common citizen.
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