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A California Reader Says Unemployed Americans €śPlan B€ť Is €śNo Mas€ť
A California Reader Says Unemployed Americans €śPlan B€ť Is €śNo
Mas€ť; etc. From: Stephen Thomas (e-mail him) "As unemployment climbs toward 10 percent, many displaced white-collar Americans may contemplate a €śPlan B€ť that includes dropping a few rungs on the ladder of vocational expectations and taking a "survival gig" to keep roof over head. If they haven't been paying attention, they may be in for a disappointment. Americans have for the past two decades turned a blind eye toward the usurpation of manual labor-type jobs by illegal aliens. Many assumed we would never again need those jobs ourselves and we could wash our hands of that type of work. Result: Mexicans now permanently occupy that entire lower tier of employment. And they aren't going anywhere (if they can help it). Americans historically tended to work such jobs as stopgaps, then the job rolled over to the next person in a jam. We called it €śupward mobility.€ť Mexicans, on the other hand, often take menial jobs as the first step in their lifelong careers. They dont advance and basically "squat" in the position. Thus there is little turnover and therefore few opportunities for Americans who have fallen on hard times to avail themselves of safety-net employment. And even when openings occur, small business employment infrastructures€”the hiring practices and people doing the hiring€”have become Mexicanized. Americans will discover that Mexicans dont look for or gain employment in the old way we used to€”the jobs arent posted, advertised or interviewed for. The market is conducted by personal contacts, the word passed among friends and relatives. In some of the small/mid-size manufacturing firms I call on, those outer waiting rooms where Americans once filled out applications and waited for an interview with a personnel director have been put to other use. They have no legitimate purpose anymore. When the production manager (himself often a Mexican immigrant) has an opening, he puts the word out within the company. The next day, a fellow worker shows up at the rear employee entrance with a "cousin" in tow, vouches for him in a short conversation in Spanish, and the deal is done. Meanwhile the clueless, newly-unemployed American who puts on a clean shirt dutifully writes up all this references and is ready to sweat out an interview is instead told "Sorry, we're not hiring." When laid off in the 1982 recession I was in a bind€”newly married, no savings, etc. But that was a different era. Even with high unemployment it was possible to go to the warehouse district and round up a menial job stacking boxes, sweeping floors or hosing out boxcars, etc. Because I also had experience doing outside electrical work, I quickly got part-time work digging trenches for conduits, too. It wasn't fun, but it didn't kill me and it paid the rent and put food on the table until I got back on my feet. I'd hate to be in the position of trying to find work like that today." Joe Guzzardi comments: Read Edwin S. Rubensteins series written for VDARE.COM titled American Worker Displacement. All the statistical evidence for Thomas letter are available to those who care to see them. http://www.vdare.com/letters/tl_112908.htm#b1 -- Message posted using http://www.talkaboutaudio.com/group/rec.audio.opinion/ More information at http://www.talkaboutaudio.com/faq.html |
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