BUSINESS SECTION

In April 2005, the US added 274,000 jobs, keeping the unemployment
rate at 5.2 percent as the economy created almost 10,000 net new jobs
a day.  In May 2005 employment growth slowed to 78,000, while the
unemployment rate stayed steady at just over five percent.  In June
2005, some 146,000 net new jobs were added, and the unemployment rate
was five percent.  The US has added an average of 180,000 jobs a
month in the first half of 2005.

About 66 percent of Americans 16 and older were employed or looking
for work, down from a peak 67.3 percent in 2000.  Hourly earnings
averaged $16 for the 80 percent of the work force employed in
production and office jobs below the level of supervisor or foreman.

Immigrants seem to be taking a disproportionate number of the new
jobs in the US labor market.  According to a Pew Hispanic Center
report released in May 2005, Hispanics filled 40 percent of the 2.5
million new jobs created in 2004, even though they are only about 15
percent of the US labor force.  Of the one million US jobs filled by
immigrants in 2004, almost 900,000 went to recent arrivals.  Mexicans
increasingly dominate many of the construction trades, from
plasterers and stucco masons to drywall installers.

The median weekly wages of Hispanics fell from $420 in 2002 to $400
in 2004.  Explanations for falling Hispanic earnings include the fact
that many workers are unauthorized and that many are going to the
Midwest and Southeast, where wages are lower than in other regions. 
(http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/45.pdf).   About 40 percent of US
Hispanics work in California, down from 60 percent in 1990.

In Nassau County on Long Island, the District Attorney arrested three
Hispanic home-improvement contractors for not paying $50,000 in back
wages to 20 day laborers, saying that the status of the workers did
not matter in resolving the unpaid wage claim.  Normally, unpaid
wages are handled by labor inspectors or small claims court, but the
district attorney said he wanted to send a message to employers who
would cheat workers of wages.

There are about 80 organized day-labor centers across the US,
including 60 that opened since 2000.  Most have buildings and staff

who register workers (without recording legal status) and record
employer license plate numbers; some offer English classes and have
clinics on site.  An estimated 25,000 laborers seek jobs at 100
places in Los Angeles county each work day, followed by 15,000 at 60
places in New York City.

Many of the 2.3 million US janitors are immigrants, and advocates say
that they are often denied overtime pay, classified improperly as
independent contractors, locked in the stores overnight and forced to
work their first two weeks unpaid.  Most janitors are employed by
cleaning companies, not building owners, reflecting a trend similar
to that in agriculture, where farmers shifted from hiring workers
directly to hiring them via labor contractors.  As in agriculture,
some labor contractors operating on thin margins allegedly cheat
newcomer immigrants.

Over the past two decades, the share of Los Angeles janitors who are
Hispanic rose from 25 percent to over 90 percent.

Migration News is produced with the support of the German Marshall
Fund of the United States and the University of California-Berkeley
Center for German and European Studies.

Suggested citations: DHS: Enforcement, Asylum.  Migration News. July
2005. Vol. 12.  No 3. http://migration.ucdavis.edu or Migration News.
2005.  DHS: Enforcement, Asylum.  July. Vol 12.  No 3.
http://migration.ucdavis.edu 

Editor: Philip Martin
Managing Editor: Cecily Sprouse
Department of Ag and Resource Economics,
One Shields Ave
University of California, Davis
Davis CA 95616
Tel (530) 752-1530
Fax: (530) 758-4928
Email: migrant@primal.ucdavis.edu
Home Page: http://migration.ucdavis.edu

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed by HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com) without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)