Booting out Illegal Aliens = many industries would fail?

[IDrinkaRum]

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...mmigrants.aspx

What is y'all's take on this article? Is it accurate? Do you agree Americans wouldn't move in and take over jobs vacated by illegal aliens?

[Dreamstalker]

I think they would, but it also seems that the root of the issue is: companies are cheap. Someone who knows what they're doing costs more...but shouldn't they ultimately cost less as there's less time lost in training?

A computer-related example:

Acme Computers has the option of hiring 20 support workers who only need to be able to follow a script and know when to escalate. Or 8 support workers who combined know how to fix pretty much every issue their users could face.

The 8 workers would cost more per employee and have longer per-call times, but would take pressure off the supervisors who would have time to deal with the truly dire problems. If a problem can be resolved in a single call, per-call-time should not be a factor.

With 20 workers, there's more manpower for the same amount of money, but those 20 workers run the risk of pissing off supers by escalating every. little. thing.

I don't take much stock in what the Heritage Foundation says: according to my dad their legitimacy doesn't make them right.

[protege]

Those 20 workers also have the ability to piss off the customers as well. Sorry, but if I'm being given the run-around, or I run into several people who don't know what they're doing, they've lost me as a customer. I have better things to do than waste time on hold because someone decided to save money by hiring people who don't know what they're doing.

With that said, I'm all for paying a bit more when it comes to service. I'd rather pay someone more who knows what they're doing...instead of paying little, and then having to repeat the job multiple times!

[Greenday]

Did I read that right? The most missed job will be maids? Oh noez! We won't have anyone to clean our own messes up for us!

[Boozy]

We don't really have to play the "What if?" game, because we've already seen the effect of more stringent immigration enforcement to some extent.

Crops rot in the fields. It's happened in Oregon, Washington, and parts of California.

Ontario (Canada) is also struggling, as migrant workers are no longer able to pass the border to pick our fruit crops.

I'm not coming down on any one side of the illegal immigration issue, but from an economics standpoint at least, the question is "Okay, we prevent all the illegal immigrants from crossing the border....now what?" We need a more comprehensive solution to this problem. A big fence is laughably shortsighted. The US economy is based on equal parts cheap labour and cheap imports. Now what?

[tropicsgoddess]

Illegal immigrants are not the only ones that work in the industries they are known to work for. You do have the recently arrived legal immigrants that work in those types of jobs as well since they might the qualifications (degree,license,etc.) to have the same job they did in their native country (i.e. teacher). Besides that, you have the lower skilled Americans and the younger generations (teens and 20 somethings) who would take those jobs. I don't think I'd really see those industries they spoke of in the article going down in flames, but what is highly possible is that the wages would go up.

[Dreamstalker]

Those 20 workers also have the ability to piss off the customers as well. Sorry, but if I'm being given the run-around, or I run into several people who don't know what they're doing, they've lost me as a customer.

Hell yeah. Unfortunately all corps seem to care about is call times, and have no idea how many customers are lost because of their money-saving measures.

My dad called his ISP exactly twice in my memory. Both times, the "answers" were so incredibly off-the-mark (one claim for an email authentication server denying a connection was "because you're using a Mozilla product which we don't support, uninstall that and it should work" [hi, it's worked fine until today and nothing has been changed on our end]...the actual problem was a server failure on their end that was fixed the next day) that he now calls me for advice. When the customer knows more than the workers hired to help the customer...there's something really wrong.

The new Click & Clack animated show on PBS had an episode tonight about outsourcing which seemed to hit the mark...in the short run it looks good with numbers, but ultimately it can go very, very wrong. All anyone cares about anymore is the short (very short)-term gains in money saved. I'm betting if that was balanced against customers, time, and money lost through incompetence things would change very quickly.

(if only freelance references were followed up on...there are dozens of people I do work for who say I'm worth every penny they pay me and then some)

[lordlundar]

Would it destroy those companies? Yes, but to say it's a bad thing is something I don't agree to. The companies which employ these illegal aliens do so because they pay them and treat them as poorly as the law will allow (and in some cases, even less) and seeing these companies go down would send a message to other companies.

Of course, that message is that it's better to spend more and have quality staff that they can keep than to spend less and lose money from incapable staff with lousy training who are going to be yanked away.

[AFPheonix]

We don't really have to play the "What if?" game, because we've already seen the effect of more stringent immigration enforcement to some extent.

Crops rot in the fields. It's happened in Oregon, Washington, and parts of California.

Ontario (Canada) is also struggling, as migrant workers are no longer able to pass the border to pick our fruit crops.

I'm not coming down on any one side of the illegal immigration issue, but from an economics standpoint at least, the question is "Okay, we prevent all the illegal immigrants from crossing the border....now what?" We need a more comprehensive solution to this problem. A big fence is laughably shortsighted. The US economy is based on equal parts cheap labour and cheap imports. Now what?

Exactly. However, the position we are in now where we have to rely on these workers to pick our produce and do other menial jobs that no one else will (they can't even get school kids to pick strawberries anymore) is untenable. It's not fair to the workers, either. They frankly deserve better than they're getting between xenophobia here, health issues from the line of work they're doing, and constant fear of getting deported back to countries that are frankly broken.
What can we as the US do? Well, we can support better legislation that doesn't undercut farmers down south like the farm bill does currently, we can innovate better farm machinery that does the same job as migrant workers. Etc etc etc. It's just going to be one of those things that in between the situation we have now and a decent fix, things are going to suck. So until it gets too expensive to maintain the status quo we have now, we will continue to have an influx of immigrants and farmers who don't benefit from the farm bill taking advantage of cheap and plentiful labor.

[Rapscallion]

I don't think the US economy would collapse, but it would be a shock. There are jobs that need doing, but the companies doing them would have to pay more to attract legal workers and thus pass their costs on.

What baffles me, when I think about it and the figures in that article, is that the country has a semi-toleration of illegal workers, yet has many more unemployed than that who are - to a certain extent - not willing to do the work. That pretty much translates to, "I was born in this country, so I should be paid more than someone who came over the border illegally, so I'm not willing to work on the jobs I can get an income for, and thus the illegal aliens are doing it and willing to do so. Hell, no, I'd prefer to claim welfare."

Pride will get you only so far. Pride and a dollar will get you a small burger. Laziness will, apparently, get you a living.

Not all people on unemployment/welfare are lazy or too proud, but there are (if the US is anything like the UK) a fair number of people who just want to claim money off the state and not seek work. If someone's genuinely seeking work then fair play to them.

Rapscallion

[Boozy]

Pride will get you only so far. Pride and a dollar will get you a small burger. Laziness will, apparently, get you a living.

Someone should steal that for a signature.

[Dreamstalker]

The companies which employ these illegal aliens do so because they pay them and treat them as poorly as the law will allow (and in some cases, even less) and seeing these companies go down would send a message to other companies.

Exactly. Companies get away with paying peanuts and treating workers like dirt because at the present time, they can. More pay and better treatment if that's what's needed to get workers won't necessarily mean CEOs lose their zillion-dollar bonuses, just that they get a few less zeros tacked on (not like they'll miss it).

[DesignFox]

The problem with the welfare vs. work issue, too is that some of those jobs pay JUST enough to keep you off the poverty line, but not enough that a person can subsist off of welfare or qualify for state assistant medical insurance. I'm sure those big wigs aren't providing their workers with health insurance...which is also part of the allure to hiring illegals.

[Boozy]

I'm sure those big wigs aren't providing their workers with health insurance...which is also part of the allure to hiring illegals.

What's that? Yet another reason to consider state-provided universal health care?

(I'm notorious for de-railing threads. Y'all feel free to smack me.)

[powerboy]

I am tired of Illegals saying that American will not work in the fields. Not all of them will. But there is a lot that will.

It is sad, that alot of people are unemployed because of the illegals. Yes, because of the illegals. They come over and take every job. They use someone else identity and make this money. Do they pay taxes, no. We have to make up for it.

Business's would not fail, if they booted out illegals. That is a bunch of bullshit. The companies would have more loyal customers. As what was mentioned before, if a customer keeps getting the run around - then lost a customer. Multiply that buy thousands or even millions. That is a lot of money that is not coming in, and all because the company wanted to get rich in the short run.