Ray Gilmer is back and remade in America

Ray Gilmer is back in the produce business, or at least in the business of produce associations. Look for coverage on The Packer news site on that story. Also, I hear that Kathy Means of PMA will soon unveil a blog...looking forward to that.

Thanks to Luis of the Fresh Produce Industry Group who links to this New York Times series/blog called "Remade in America."

Luis asks:

Do we need foreign farm workers? do we need foreign hi-tech workers? Do we only want access to temp workers or to shape future citizens? A big discussion blog at the NYT.


From a discussion about low wage workers:


From Steven A. Camarota is the director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit research organization

The first thing to note about workers in low-wage jobs that require relatively little education is that the overwhelming majority are born in the United States. For example, the 2007 American Community Survey by the Census Bureau showed that 65 percent of meatpackers, 68 percent of construction laborers, 73 percent of dishwashers and 74 percent of janitors were U.S.-born. Of course, the immigrant share (legal and illegal) of any occupation varies enormously from city to city. But it’s clear from this data that Americans are willing to do this work.
According to the January Current Population Survey, which measures unemployment, there are now 24 million adult native-born Americans (18 to 64 years of age) who have no education beyond high school who are either unemployed or not in the labor force, which means they are not even looking for work.
During the last few decades the share of these less-educated Americans who are working has been declining and their wages, adjusted for inflation, have been falling. At the same time, the number of immigrants in the low-wage labor market has grown drastically. While most economists think immigration has caused some of this deterioration in wages, there is debate about how much. But even before the recession, it was almost impossible to find any evidence of a labor shortage at the bottom of the economy. If there was, wages and employment rates should all be rising, the exact opposite of what’s been happening for a long time.
Given the severity of this economic downturn, the long-term decrease in wages and employment for the least educated will likely accelerate. Assuming the United States does not change its immigration policy during the recession, competition between native-born Americans and new immigrants will almost certainly intensify for low-wage jobs.
One million new legal immigrants are expected to settle in the country permanently this year. Most will try to find work and a very large share will join the low-wage labor market. Moreover, several hundred thousand unskilled foreign workers will be admitted on a temporary basis under the H2B visa program, which is for unskilled non-agricultural workers in seasonal jobs like landscaping and hospitality. In fact, Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Democrat from Maryland, recently introduced legislation that could triple the size of that visa program above its current cap. As for illegal immigration, the evidence indicates it has fallen, but there are still an estimated six million to seven million illegal immigrant workers in the country, who are heavily concentrated in low-wage jobs.
The January Current Population Survey shows that the unemployment rate for less-educated immigrants is still somewhat better than for less-educated native-born Americans. But it is rising fast for immigrants and natives alike. As the employment picture deteriorates, we can expect more immigrants and native-born Americans to turn to the social safety net. The survey collected in 2007, before the recession, showed that 33 percent of immigrant-headed households had at least one person using a welfare program, mostly food assistance and Medicaid. This compares to 19 percent of households headed by native-born Americans. Welfare use can be expected to increase significantly for both groups.


From Gordon Hanson, a professor of economics and the director of the Center on Pacific Economies at the University of California, San Diego.

During the last two decades, immigrants have become a vital part of the low-skilled labor force in the United States. As of 2007, the foreign-born accounted for 48 percent of the supply of workers with less than a high school education.

Surprising as it might seem, the economic crisis is unlikely to change the situation by very much. Among the low-skilled, immigrants are much more likely than natives to be employed. At the height of the recent economic boom, the number of hours worked by the typical low-skilled immigrant was 56 percent greater than for the typical low-skilled native

Immigrants outcompete low-skilled natives for jobs because they are more motivated or because they are more productive. While the current depressed state of the United States economy is unlikely to attract many new immigrants to our shores, those who are already here will continue to be a mainstay in low-end employment.