A common counterargument to the anti immigrant sentiment goes something like “we need someone to scrub our toilets for less than minimum wage, and immigrants are perfect for that”. I even see some of that going on in this thread. Grosses me out to no end.
A better counterargument goes as follows. Immigrants do not only take jobs, they bring jobs as well. Every immigrant is another mouth to feed, in need of grocery stores, restaurants, legal representation, medical care, schooling, entertainment, and so on. They’re the real job creators (as we all are). Being upset at immigrants for stealing jobs is exactly as stupid as being upset at people having children because the child will steal a job someday.
I really hate the “oh yeah, who will do the subhuman stuff then?” argument.
So, here in NZ we have a lot of seasonal workers; e.g. fruit pickers.
Their pay still need to meet the legislated minima. They usually then ‘sacrifice’ a chunk of that part for accommodation.
These jobs are by (a) majority staffed by temporary workers from the Pacific Islands. The pay and seasonality is unattractive for domestic workers but excellent for the temporary workers from the Pacific Islands compared to their domestic pay rates.
So, we’re kind of doing good to support our poorer neighbours in the Pacific? But at the same time we’re exploiting them to suppress the wages they’d have to pay for staffing domestically?
I mean, pay everyone better. Duh. Wine and kiwi fruit are among our most valuable exports and the industry pays the bare minimum it can.
My take on this is usually that yes, your job may have been stolen, but it was not the guy doing what you think should have been your job that is at fault. It is your employer or government that is almost always at fault, with them trying to undercut employees. Or perhaps your education system is shit.
That’s assuming that it’s a job you could realistically be doing.
“They took my job!”
“You sold fruit and flowers on the side of the road?”
Most of the time, yes. However there are exceptions. In Canada many businesses fraudulently used TFW to take positions pretending that there are no Canadians willing or able. The Federal govt is starting to crack down a bit but it was many businesses’ way of trying to hold down wages and increase profits. There is also the credential issue. I’ve known a couple companies to hired foreign “highly trained” workers that ended up being anything but. They had better fake diplomas.
If a guy from another country, that can’t speak fluently your language and without studies takes your job then the problem is not that guy.
And if that other guy has knowledge of things you don’t understand the problem isn’t that guy.
A lot of economic migrants speak fluently and are well educated.
In the tech fields companies definitely do bring in workers from other countries to take the same jobs for less money. This can be solved by allowing immigrants to keep their legal status if they are fired, and by having union contracts preventing paying them less than native workers.
Yeah, H1A and H1B visas (as do others, I’m sure,) tend to allow employers to do shitty things since they’re basically able to ruin the workers’ (and sometimes their families’) lives. As an immigrant to another country, it’s not fun living with that fear and stress all the time.
But… But… How will I pay slave wages then?
Yes yes, the line went up 2.6% last quarter, it must go up 2.8% this quarter. Also, I, the CEO, ONLY have 7000 hojillion dollars, I might starve if I pay people for working. Ideally, we wpuld invent some way for computers to cludge words together so I can fire ALL the workers, imported or not.
/s
That’s better than what we currently do in Canada but it still depresses wages because now corporations can just ask for more supply to meet their labour demand. There’s no upward pressure on wages when the demand crunch has a relief valve to import as many people as they need.
I’m hiring for a few positions right now. All would have been entry level in the US. College Grads and early career folks. We now source mostly out of the Philippines for new College Grads and earlier career folks for all entry level jobs.
If you hire from the top, they are mostly the same skill level but 1/4th the cost.
My suspicion is the C-suite now believes that if they are going to pay people to work from home they might as well have them working remotely from home in the Philippines than in the US.
I don’t agree with any of this. It is just what seems to be the movement for a lot of remote work companies, both big and small.
Yes, importing foreigners workers who are willing to work in worse working conditions are definitely a good think for the worker rights. Fuck this world.
In my industry they don’t import them.
They simply change where the remote work is done. It means warehouses of workers are working overnight for US companies to render services to US citizens. These used to be US based jobs until the C-suite decided offshoring was cheaper and had a vindictive streak for US work from home employees.
Yeah that’s not true. There’s an entire generation of young Canadians that were entirely locked out of the same start I had in the work force. I worked at Cineplex and liquor stores, and finally a vape shop during school. That work experience helped me get a job in my industry compared to having no work history at all but an education.
For the past 10 years it’s been really bad with the foreign slave program in Canada. Corporations basically own these temporary foreign workers as modern day slaves… If you speak out or complain you get sent home. If you try to change jobs they cancel your permit before you have a chance and you get sent home. You take what they give you or you get sent home.
They live 10 to a room, and are brought to work in vans or busses. Truly horrible living conditions in my opinion. And they’re working jobs that Canadians do want to do (not universally, but retail/service jobs are typically the first foray a 16-18 year old has into working) but can’t get. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say it’s made an entire generation of kids less employable because they didn’t have a job earlier. It’s harder to compete with older workers who had that opportunity and also have relevant work experience.
Edit: I should clarify I’m not going “immigrants took my job!” I’m pointing out that capitalists lobbied my government for a defacto slavery program, and my government complied. Now millions of kids have less work experience, will earn less than older peers who managed to pad their resume with retail/service jobs, and those young kids will earn less over their entire life because they’re permanently behind compared to older peers.
The effects from this compounds and I’m not sure it ever fully recovers. Young kids end up needing to take more and more desperate shitty jobs just to do anything at all, with the hopes of eventually doing more in their actual profession. Compared to a GenX or millenial with a decade or more of relevant work experience, Gen Z and alpha are at a permanent disadvantage now and into the future.
Yet people say “immigrants took my job”, instead of, corporations gave away my job due to rampant uncontrolled capitalism and profiteering.
Because Murdoch likes them to believe that.
Yes that’s the core of the issue… Capital interests lobbies my government to legalize slavery again and the government allowed it.
It rolls right off the tongue lol
That has been happening for years in the Netherlands and only now are they starting to resolve this problem. They just told massive butchering factories they are no longer allowed to have temp workers and everyone has to have a proper contract.
We’re reversing course in Canada too. I think they somehow realized that there’s no future for anyone if they keep doing this since it continuously injures gen Z and gen alpha and their ability to be productive, contribute to society, and pay taxes. What are your TFW slaves supposed to do when nobody has a job and any money to spend?
They have various things like that here in the U.S. as well. They pay them minimum wage, and then they deduct fees from their paycheck before they give it to them. (Rent, transportation to and from work). One I knew was telling me that he didn’t get paid overtime either, he just didn’t get fees deducted on hours over 40, so he was working near 80 hours a week at this hotel. The hotel still didn’t even want to sponsor him so he could get out of that program and get an actual wage or try to get citizenship. It’s cheaper for them that way. They just pay the person who shoves them all in a small place together and drives them to work. So when the hotel submits their stuff, it doesn’t show he wasn’t getting paid overtime, that money just disappears into the handlers pocket.
nah! you see jobs are trickle down! when some foreigner comes in and gets a good job, the american who should have got that job has to settle for jr astrophysicist, and that displaced the american who should have got that job! and when it gets to me i get NO JOB, or have to SETTLE!
/s
as someone with first hand experience in hiring, I can say that the grand majority of applicants we get are immigrants. and they are competing directly with undergraduates for positions.
I’m not commenting on it. I’m just stating a fact. shit on me anyways I guess
edit: actually I will add my own comment and say that the majority of applicants were not qualified or competent anyways. at least that is my conclusion after interviewing those that did make it past HR. so that does tip the scales towards “immigrants are not competing for the same jobs” since most applicants were immigrants and most applicants were not competent and thus not actually being considered for the role.
Does anybody actually say that anymore? I think the whole “immigrants are taking our jobs” was an excuse back when racism wasn’t mainstream. Now it is, so people don’t use it anymore, they just say way more racist things instead. It’s just a strawman at this point
People may not say that sentence verbatim anymore (because it’s been ridiculed enough for decades so even the dullest dullard avoids it) but stuff like “we don’t have room” is the same sentiment. Industrial
statescountries absolutely have the capacities to integrate a whole bunch of immigrants, we just don’t wanna.Edit: native German terminology bleeding through
“we don’t have room”
Meanwhile:
What a shitty map. The fact that all “metropolitan counties” (where undoubtedly people are moving to) are greyed out really makes it look like there’s a larger flight of people than there is.
Especially since at least in my opinion using metropolitan on a county level is kinda stupid, maybe it works on the east coast and with smaller counties but still once you apply it to say San Bernardino, Riverside, and Kern you’ve over applied it. Seriously San Bernardino is bigger than some countries and states, which for reference Rhode Island is about 1,500 square miles while San Bernardino is about 20,000 square miles with probably only half of that being populated with any amount of reasonable density. Source for the density I’m from this county and get pegged by random assholes outside the state as being from San Bernardino county hell some of the more experienced ones can even guess who I’m related to.
I like how its “data unavailable” for all of Canada, Mexico and the oceans.
It diverged.
The full on racists went mask off.
Those who just want to keep wages up for a reasonable life realised it isn’t really immigration or any race ‘taking their jobs’ but a capitalist plot to suppress wages further.
Speaking as someone who’s in a blue-collar workspace, and who has family in Trades, they do still think those people are ‘taking our jobs’; they just say it quieter because they know they’ll get in trouble with HR if they say it too loudly.
It’s still a thing in the UK, but now the men who beat their wives are harassing peeple outside asylum centres claiming they are the only ones trying to protect women and girls.
Have you seen Danny Thompsons latest venture with the gangs of lads? Special time apparently.
Dey tork err jerrrbs!!
I know some refuse to do the jobs because they aren’t being paid a livable wage and the working conditions are dogshit. Part of the reason that there’s plenty of desperate, ununionized workers willing to do those job, some who don’t pay taxes, follow the law etc. Immigrants, especially illegal immigrants are being used as a tool to sidestep law, union rules, having to pay proper wages etc.
If a job can’t be done without paying a proper wage and giving proper working conditions, it doesn’t deserve to be done imo.
God those “under the table” pay types are almost worse than immigrants. Like ho boy, you saved some pay not paying taxes, but you are still leaching tax money through medicaid because on paper you have no job. Also because you are paid “under the table” you also disadvantage everyone eith shittier working conditions. Also, the negatice impact to unions (that you mentioned). Maybe if these people unionized, they could get actual benefits and pay that is way better than the “under the table” pay even WITH paying in for taxes.
But nope, these idiots have been drinking the TaXeS aRe ThEfT kool aid too long. So they just fuck themselves over, as usual.
But then, thats why its the Idiot Cult.