Are Immigrants Really Taking Our Jobs?

During the presidential campaign there was a lot of talk from Donald Trump about how immigrants are taking our jobs. Let's think about this for a minute.  Trump's statements conjured up images of hoards of Mexicans overrunning our boarders and snatching our jobs away from us, putting millions of Americans out of work and plunging us into poverty.  Is this really happening?  I don't think so.

Unemployment in the United States is very low, especially compared to other countries.  The last figure I heard was about 4.8 percent.  While that number equates to a lot of unemployed Americans, it's a lot lower than the 7.8 percent unemployment number that Barack Obama faced when he became President.  And it's certainly lower than Spain's 26 percent.  So what about Trump's claims that immigrants are keeping 4.8 percent of hard working Americans from finding jobs?

I can't tell you about what's happening in every job sector, but I can tell you what's happening in the two sectors I've been in:  Foodservice and Technology.  Let's start with Foodservice.

Foodservice doesn't pay very much, especially for kitchen workers.  The dozens of reality shows about restaurants make it sound glamorous and lucrative, but it just isn't.  You work a lot of long hours in an unhealthy environment for very little money.  For someone with a deep passion for food it's a way to express creativity by making beautiful things, but for the other 99% of Foodservice workers it's just really hard work for very little pay.  Sorry to burst your bubble.  That's just the way it is.

If you go into any restaurant kitchen in the Unites States, you'll probably find Mexicans back there.  Why is that?  Well, to put it simply, Mexicans are willing to work very hard for less money than Americans.  They turn out a lot of quality product quickly for less pay and then they either go home or go to their other jobs.  The majority of Mexicans I've worked with in Foodservice have more than one full time job.  They work a lot of hours in order to make enough money to support their families.  Americans prefer one job that pays enough for us to live on.  Mexicans are indeed taking jobs that could be filled by Americans, but they get those jobs because we won't do them ourselves.  They are not taking our jobs.  They're taking jobs that Americans refuse to do.  How is that wrong?  My point here is that there are a lot of jobs available and, if we're going to complain that immigrants are taking them from us, then we have to be willing to take those jobs ourselves.  If we're not, then immigrants who take those jobs are not harming us.  They're doing us a favor.

The situation in technology is a little different.  In the technology sector we see more and more workers from other countries competing for jobs.  The difference is that they work harder to get those jobs.  They educate themselves better, they work longer hours, and they produce.  Americans see those jobs as an entitlement.  Immigrants see them as a reward for hard work.

So the next time you see Donald Trump on TV whining about immigrants taking our jobs, know that it's not their fault.  It's ours.  We need to change our own attitudes and behaviors if we want to be more competitive in the job market.