Question

sion board Forum: Discussion Topic #1 : How Does 1: How Does Immigration Affect the US Labor Market? 4 short paragraphs response to the question ation Subscribe

Answer 1

There has been a lot of debate about the relation between immigration and US labor market.There is no doubt that immigrants pose a lot of problems for the native Americans.It was felt that immigration increases the unemployment rate.Research was done to show the impact of immigration on unemployment and wages.It was seen that there was no correlation between immigration and unemployment or we can say the correlation was weak. As for eg,in Alaska , during the period 2000-2005, immigration fell from 7.5 to 6.7% but unemployment increased from 6.4 to 6.9 %.Similar has been with other American states.

There is also weak correlation between immigration and wages in labor market.It has been seen in even though proportion of immigration varies across states, there has been very less changes in wage in the different states.So there is no clear evidence of correlation between immigration and labor market.

Again there was no evidence which proved that low skilled workers affected the labor market of native low skilled workers.As for example, when Cuban low skilled workers moved to Miami , there was no change in the wages and unemployment rate natives of Miami.

However some immigrants have good effect on the economy.This is true of highly skilled workers who contribute to productivity with their improved ideas and innovations. Again ,it can be said that immigrants and natives perform different types of work and are not substitutes of each other.So they do not compete.Usually immigrants perform manual work and natives perform work related to communication.