Shadow workers: Hungry, hard-working - boon or bane?
But "Sarah," who asked not to be identifed, says there is an indisputable fact about her homeland. "I like Mexico," she said, "but it's hard to live."
She is one of an estimated 85,000 undocumented immigrants living in Utah, according to Pew Hispanic Center estimates for 2003-04. Like most of these illegal residents, "Sarah" came here for the work.
The fact that these foreigners need Utah jobs to support their families brings up two controversial questions:
Are these undocumented workers taking jobs from native-born Utahns? And what would happen to the Utah economy without them?
A Deseret Morning News study of this subject makes several conclusions about undocumented workers' impact on the Utah economy.
• The middle class benefits from illegal workers. It costs less for most services. It costs less to eat in restaurants, less for lawn care, less for construction and remodeling.
• Utah companies benefit from this hungrier, hard-working work force. They pay lower wages because of this portion of the work force. Utah businesses make little effort to verify documentation of workers.
• Immigrants — legal and illegal — are rapidly becoming the backbone of many sectors in Utah's economy. Forty percent of Utah's animal slaughtering and processing jobs are held by immigrants, 16 percent of accommodation and food service and 11 percent of construction employees are immigrants.
• Illegal workers hurt U.S.-born, low-skill workers and legal immigrants with little education. These are the people in direct competition for the kinds of jobs undocumented workers take.
• Utah would suffer a labor shortage if all illegal workers were banished.
Put a fence around the country or around Utah. Don't let anyone in. There are still jobs that need to be done.
"Would we have the native-born people who would pick cherries, clean toilets, work in the kitchen and do all of those things?" University of Utah senior research economist Pam Perlich said.
"Maybe. But it might require a higher wage."
The effect would be the absence of labor coming in at the low end, she says. Wages in those jobs would probably increase and costs of production would go up. And consumers would notice.
"We'd have higher prices for agriculture, higher prices for lawn care, we'd have higher prices for a lot of things," Perlich said.
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