I have been told time, and time again when the demand for minimum wage workers increase….(see details)

In America, it’s fairly difficult to bring in foreign workers legally to fill non-skilled positions. Hiring illegal immigrants is another issue.

Ok here in Canada it is possible to hire foreign workers a mine up north got in trouble for hiring a bunch and paying them less,they said they couldn’t find local workers , then it was found they really didn’t try to find local help, our Government will allow companies to hire foreign help as long as they exhaust every means at finding Canadians to fill those positions, but companies are abusing that to bring in outside help and pay them less.
And it is rampant in the fast food line of work, our Government is trying to tighten it up, but not fast enough.

@janbb It isn’t really that hard to do. In the ski industry, for example, the company will fulfill legal advertising obligations and hold job fairs. Anyone in attendance can be hired. They will fill a certain % of hourly spots with J1 visas, or student visas, which are eliminated as soon as the snow melts. Those students only have work visas for a specific company for a specific time.
Then they hire H2B visas at the job fairs or through advertising. Also time constricted work visas, those foreigners are able to work legally for anyone hiring them.
Seasonal industries definitely fill out their work forces with cheaper legal foreign employees. If an American won’t do the job for 4 months at minimum wage there will always be others who will.

Ok – good to know. Thanks.

See so it is in the states to.
I guess there will always be someone willing to work for shit.

@SQUEEKY2 yeah, I guess the argument is that if there were local workers qualified or interested they would be at the job fairs. They host them at very strategic times.

@GloPro yeah, so they can hire outside help at a lesser rate of pay,while citizens starve.

Yes. Then they screw the visas when the season slows. If they fall shy of 30 hours a week they lose their jobs and get deported. Very sly.

Depends.

I am a skilled tradesman, and when demand in my field is up, there’s competition for the relatively few people that can do what I do. How do you think I got my signing bonus?

But that really plays into the whole “supply and demand” thing, and given the minimal requirements for unskilled labor compared to the available worker pool, there’s absolutely no reason to pay more than you need to when you have 4,625 replacements.

Sorry for the multiple posts, but I keep getting interrupted by life…

Where it gets tricky is when employers decide they need what they’re not willing to pay the going rate for. Then you’ll see demand for “minimum wage” workers increase while wages don’t, or may even decrease if enough employers follow suit.

Overall, the notion that demand increases wages is half-truth. After all, minimum wage is an increase over no wage.

The point has been strikingly demonstrated by the influx of unlimited numbers of workers across our Southern borders. I cannot think of a single formerly middle class labor trade or profession in this country that hasn’t been transformed into a low wage scrape by level of employment. From meat packing to moving and storage, there are hungry people willing to do it cheaper. Regardless of the excuses proffered, as far as I’m concerned, THIS is the real reason the borders are allowed to remain porous.

@stanleybmanly ~Well, that saves us the hassle of shipping the jobs to them.

Seriously though, I can think of a few, unless you and I have different definitions of “middle class labor trade or profession”. Then again, I don’t know of many unskilled trades that were ever “middle class” either, only some that opened the doors to working your way up to a more skilled position that does count as “middle class”. How many baristas, fry cooks, and hotel room cleaners do you know pulling in $40k or more a year?

Thing is, the ability to lift heavy objects and move them from one place to another is no longer considered a highly marketable skill worthy of the same pay as, say, an electrician. This is 2014, not 1914.

The pressure on the trades is there as well. Electricians, plumbers, carpenters, painters, the union guys are still struggling through, but if you call roto rooter (at least out here) the guy who shows up is NEVER someone born in this country. 5 years ago we had the deck rebuilt. A white guy showed up with his Hispanic assistant, did the measuring, gave us an estimate and I didn’t see him again til time to write the check 4 days later. The 6 guys (including the assistant) did first class work, but not one of them was an American citizen. 30 years ago, I was surprised to learn that the moving industry here was composed of a work force consisting primarily of illegal aliens. They were Irish! They aren’t anymore. You mentioned electricians. As with all of the trades, the union guys get all the big projects, the office buildings, municipal contracts, etc. But who in their right mind is going to call a union painter, carpenter, plumber or even electrician to work on their house. Are you going to take your car to the dealership for that $90 oil change performed by the guy in the machinist’s union, or entrust it to Miguel at the filling station with the $19.95 special?

@stanleybmanly In my trade, it’s entirely competence-based, but you need to be a legal citizen to even get in the building. Sure, we have Mexican-Americans, Laotian-Americans, and plenty of other immigrants, but all are American citizens, and the only ones that earn even close to minimum wage are those that lack the skills to fill positions that would earn them a middle-class income.
Maybe where you are is a bit more lax about background checks than any place I’ve ever been?

A green card isn’t sufficient? I’m not claiming that everyone not born here is in the country illegally. The folks building my deck were good at their jobs, and would pass for journeyman carpenters anywhere. Don’t get me wrong. If I knew for a fact that they were here illegally I would not do a single thing to cause them trouble. As far as I’m concerned, the height of hypocrisy is involved in hounding people for doing EXACTLY as I would do in their circumstances. I’m merely stating that a major reason that the flood of people crossing the border is not stemmed is due to the fact that they depress wages overall in the economy. It is a big reason why wages in he country are stagnant or falling. All of us are co-opted into playing the game, as I dash down to the corner for the $19.95 oil change. It’s the Walmart argument, as crowds flood in for the bargains made possible because the store’s employees work for wages qualifying them for food stamps. The claim from those piling up billions as a result is that we as consumers benefit enormously from such arrangements. And the middle class melts before our eyes like a snowman in August.