Jobless Whites, Blacks Push Out Immigrant Workers

Tough job market sends foreign-born workers home
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 20, 2008 11:48 AM CST
Jobless Whites, Blacks Push Out Immigrant Workers
Immigrant day laborers looking for work gather at a street corner in Dallas.    (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Tens of thousands of Hispanic immigrants are leaving the US as out-of-work Americans compete with them for manual labor jobs, the Wall Street Journal reports. Even farms, which once struggled to fill positions, are turning people away because white and black Americans need work. "There is definitely a lot of talk about leaving" among Latinos, said the manager of a Los Angeles job center. "People are on their last hope."

The jobless rate for Latino immigrants is up about 2% since last year, and would be higher if more stayed in the US. In this year’s third quarter, 71.3% of Latino immigrant workers were employed or looking for work, a 1.1% drop from a year earlier. That “marks a substantial decrease in the labor-market participation of Latino immigrants,” said one economist.
(More job market stories.)

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