Sunday, October 31, 2010

Immigration Creates Jobs

I've posted before on selfish reasons, moral reasons, economic reasons, and population reasons for allowing more immigration. In light of reading the disgusting mix of business and government in imprisoning illegal immigrants, here's a benefit I haven't mentioned, employment:
The study notes that when companies move production offshore, they pull away not only low-wage jobs but also many related jobs, which can include high-skilled managers, tech repairmen and others. But hiring immigrants even for low-wage jobs helps keep many kinds of jobs in the United States, the authors say. In fact, when immigration is rising as a share of employment in an economic sector, offshoring tends to be falling, and vice versa, the study found.

In other words, immigrants may be competing more with offshored workers than with other laborers in America.

American economic sectors with much exposure to immigration fared better in employment growth than more insulated sectors, even for low-skilled labor, the authors found.
Hat tip to everyone's favorite economist, Tyler Cowen.

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