Happy Labor Day! And don’t forget our immigrant workers
As this piece by Elaine Ayala reminds us, we should all thank immigrant workers on each and every Labor Day:
“It has become a welcomed day off for Americans who probably don’t know that labor unions made it possible. In 1882, a New York parade of unions kicked off Labor Day events that eventually led to minimum-wage standards, the 40-hour work week and an end to child labor, rights now taken for granted. A lot of those early workers were immigrants. Our first skyscrapers? They were built by immigrants. The Brooklyn Bridge? Immigrant labor. Mining and railroads? Immigrants, again and again. They came from Hungary, Poland, Russia, Ireland and Italy. Chinese and Mexicans took their turns, all playing vital roles in the nation’s history, culture and economic growth. On this and every Labor Day, we should thank them, especially as more predominantly white baby boomers retire and become ever more dependent on immigrant labor.”
In May 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor reported the following about foreign-born labor in the United States:
The unemployment rate for foreign-born persons in the United States was 5.6 percent in 2014, down from 6.9 percent in 2013 . . . . The jobless rate of native-born persons fell to 6.3 percent from 7.5 percentin the prior year. . . . Highlights from the 2014 data: -- In 2014, there were 25.7 million foreign-born persons in the U.S. labor force, comprising 16.5 percent of the total. -- Hispanics accounted for 48.3 % of the foreign-born labor force in 2014 and Asians accounted for 24.1 %.
-- Foreign-born workers were more likely than native-born workers to be employed in service occupations and less likely to be employed in management, professional, and related occupations and in sales and office occupations. -- The median usual weekly earnings of foreign-born full-time wage and salary workers were $664 in 2014, compared with $820 for their native-born counterparts. (Differences in earnings reflect a variety of factors, including variations in the distributions of foreign-born and native-born workers by educational attainment, occupation, industry, and geographic region.)
As this data shows, immigrants are an important -- and highly productive part -- of the American economy. Do not forget them on Labor Day.
KJ