JOBS AMERICANS WON’T DO….I’ve always been sort of agnostic on the “jobs Americans won’t do” argument. There’s obviously something to it, but at the same time it’s also a cop out. Offer field workers ten bucks an hour and decent treatment and you could find plenty of native Americans to fill the jobs currently taken by illegal immigrants.
Or so I thought. Which made this morning’s story in the LA Times pretty interesting. David Streitfeld talked to several landscape contractors, all of whom have jobs on offer ranging from $9 to $34 an hour, and found that they still can’t come close to filling them with natives. Cyndi Smallwood says the situation has completely soured her on Republicans:
That’s due in large measure to her anger at her congressman, Rep. Gary G. Miller (R-Diamond Bar), who does not favor a guest worker program.
In January, Smallwood had a contentious meeting with Miller at his district office in Brea. She said Miller twice challenged her assertion that she couldn’t find workers for $34 an hour, saying his son would work for that wage and offering to send him over.
Smallwood said she took the deal, but that his son never showed up. Miller declined to be interviewed.
I’ll bet. The people interviewed in the story claim to be offering $9-$15 for unskilled tenders, $20 for supervisors, and upwards of $34 for experienced laborers ? and they still can’t fill the jobs.
I’m not quite sure if this is a fair cross section of what’s going on or not. But it seems legit. And it’s an interesting data point.
