How does immigration affect unemployment?

Answer 1

Many people see Immigration as a problem and increases unemployment. This may be a misconception. In places of high unemployment, you would not have any immigrants there simply because of no work. People see the immigrants taking all the blue collar jobs but it simply not the case. They do jobs that the "native" people won't do. These include strawberry picking, rubbish collector, cleaner... The list goes on. So next time you say kick out the immigrants, you go do the dirt work. The cost of such things will go up thanks to no willing people.

Misconception? Given a difficult economy employers can hire 2 illegal's for the price of one tax paying legal worker! The more available the steady stream of illegals the easier and more tempting it is to not only lay off a tax paying worker but to delay hiring any of them back. As for the point made above: "In places of high unemployment, you would not have any immigrants there simply because of no work." I see exactly the opposite is the case. You do see high unemployment figures of tax paying workers where you see large concentrations of illegal aliens. The simple answer is the math put forth in my previous paragraph.

There are still hard working Americans who need a job and would certainly do the jobs you suggest "native people" won't do. It is just that the pay scale has been driven down by cheap illegal labor that Tax paying workers can't make a living doing it. But when you don't pay taxes and receive social services you can have a far better life then in the country of your birth. That's why American Tax paying workers can't pick strawberries or other jobs you are suggesting we won't do.