Labor Economics – Page 66 – artdiamondblog.com

For Better Jobs, Immigrants Voluntarily Line Up to Learn English

In Mount Vernon, New York, Maria de Oliveira (center) waited three months for an opening in this English class. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

In the United States, other things equal, those who speak English earn more than those who do not. So there is a substantial incentive for immigrants to learn English, even in the absence of the much-debated proposed laws to mandate English in various ways. Consider the evidence in the article excerpted below:

(p. A1) MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. — Two weeks after she moved here from her native Brazil, Maria de Oliveira signed up for free English classes at a squat storefront in this working-class suburb, figuring that with an associate’s degree and three years as an administrative assistant, she could find a good job in America so long as she spoke the language.

The woman who runs the classes at Mount Vernon’s Workforce and Career Preparation Center added Ms. Oliveira’s name to her pink binder, at the bottom of a 90-person waiting list that stretched across seven pages. That was in October. Ms. Oliveira, 26, finally got a seat in the class on Jan. 16.

“I keep wondering how much more I’d know if I hadn’t had to wait so long,” she said in Portuguese.

. . .

Luis Sanchez, 47, a Peruvian truck driver for a beer distributor in New Brunswick, has been in this country (p. C14) 10 years — and on the waiting list for English classes in Perth Amboy five months. “You live from day to day, waiting to get the call that you can come to class,” Mr. Sanchez said in Spanish, explaining that he knew a little English but wanted to improve his writing skills so he could apply for better jobs. “I keep on waiting.”

. . .

In Newburgh, N.Y., an Orange County town where one in five of the 29,000 residents are immigrants, Blanca Saravia has amassed an impressive portfolio of odd jobs since arriving from Honduras in 2004: gas station attendant, office janitor, cook’s helper, and, for the last 14 months, packager at a local nail-polish factory. Speaking in her native Spanish, Ms. Saravia said that she has been able to get by with co-workers’ translating, but that “when the boss gives orders, I don’t understand.”

. . .

. . . Ahmed Al Saidi, 49, who works at a gas station and moved from Yemen in 1994, said in halting English that he wants to learn the language “for better work and to talk to people when I go to the store.”

Ms. Oliveira, the immigrant from Brazil, said she still knows too little English to venture into the marketplace; her husband, who is American born and supports the couple financially, encouraged her to enroll in the classes, held five mornings a week.

“I hope that when I’m speaking a little better, I’ll be able to find a job where I can use the English I learned here and the skills I have from back home,” she said in Portuguese. “When I was on the waiting list, there were times I thought this time would never come.”

For the full story, see:

FERNANDA SANTOS. "Demand for English Lessons Outstrips Supply." The New York Times (Tues., February 27, 2007): A1 & C14.

(Note: ellipses added.)

Source of graphic: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

“Work Hard at Work Worth Doing”

We went to see "The Bridge to Tarabithia" this afternoon (2/25/07), which I thought was a sad, but good, movie aimed at older children, but with enough plot and enough characters to care about, to be of interest to adults too.

I heard a quote in the movie that I liked and I don’t remember having heard before. It’s source was given as Teddy Roosevelt, who is not one of my favorite presidents, because of his efforts to increase the size and power of government. But he wasn’t all bad, and he sometimes spoke well:

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

Theodore Roosevelt, Speech in New York, September 7, 1903 [26th president of US (1858 – 1919)]

Source of quote, and information about quote: http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/2056.html

Instead of Shrugging, Atlas Sometimes Moves to the United States

Source of graphic: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A10) CARACAS, Venezuela — Oil-rich Venezuela has experienced the kind of economic boom in recent years that should be flush with job opportunities. But an increasing number of professionals, many of them from the oil industry, are looking abroad for work, driven away by President Hugo Chávez’s effort to extend state control over the economy, and by inflation verging on 20%.

Since his re-election in December, Mr. Chávez has pursued an agenda of "21st Century Socialism," painting a future of "communal cities" and state-run cooperatives dedicated to production, not profit.

. . .

Still, at the U.S. Embassy call center for visas in Caracas, the lines have been jammed since Mr. Chávez announced in early January the nationalization of the electricity industry and Venezuela’s largest telecommunications firm. "It doubled practically overnight," said a U.S. diplomat.

The number of Venezuelans receiving U.S. legal permanent residence more than doubled from 2000 to 2005, when 10,870 got their green cards. In that period the overall number of green cards increased by a third. During that period the number of Venezuelan-born U.S. residents increased 42%, to 151,743, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

. . .

Any opposition-minded oil workers still left at PdVSA face a difficult environment. During the presidential campaign last year, PdVSA President Rafael Ramirez told company executives to join Mr. Chávez’s political movement or hit the road. In 2003, Mr. Chávez sacked around 20,000 PdVSA staffers — about half the company’s work force — for walking off the job, calling them "terrorists." A majority of them were the managers, accountants and field engineers who turned the state oil venture into a world-class oil company during a period of robust expansion in the 1990s.

Many found work elsewhere, including in Mexico, Canada and Saudi Arabia, at a time of high demand for experienced oil workers.

The lost expertise has taken a toll on PdVSA, the country’s largest single employer. Its share of the global market for crude oil supply is shrinking, and accidents and outages are on the rise. Analysts say the cost to PdVSA of producing a barrel of oil has nearly doubled in the past five years to more than $4.50.

For the full story, see:

PETER MILLARD. "Professionals Exit Venezuela; Chávez’s Grip on Power Drives Out Oil Experts; Support Hugo or You Go." The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., February 15, 2007): A10.

(Note: ellipses added.)

Immigrant Entrepreneurs Thrive in New York City

Manuel and mother Mercedes of the entrepreneurial Miranda family, inspect the corn flatbread called "arepa." Source of photo: online version of the NYT article cited below.

Immigrant entrepreneurship contributes to the vitality and dynamism of New York and the nation. Note the graphic at the bottom of this entry shows that employment increases in the same areas of the city in which immigrant entrepreneurship is thriving.

Manuel A. Miranda was 8 when his family immigrated to New York from Bogotá. His parents, who had been lawyers, turned to selling home-cooked food from the trunk of their car. Manuel pitched in after school, grinding corn by hand for traditional Colombian flatbreads called arepas.

Today Mr. Miranda, 32, runs a family business with 16 employees, producing 10 million arepas a year in the Maspeth section of Queens. But the burst of Colombian immigration to the city has slowed; arepas customers are spreading through the suburbs, and competition for them is fierce. Now, he says, his eye is on a vast, untapped market: the rest of the country.

. . .

“Immigrants have been the entrepreneurial spark plugs of cities from New York to Los Angeles,” said Jonathan Bowles, the director of the Center for an Urban Future, a private, nonprofit research organization that has studied the dynamics of immigrant businesses that turned decaying neighborhoods into vibrant commercial hubs in recent decades. “These are precious and important economic generators for New York City, and there’s a risk that we might lose them over the next decade.”

A report to be issued by the center today highlights both the potential and the challenge for cities full of immigrant entrepreneurs, who often face language barriers, difficulties getting credit, and problems connecting with mainstream agencies that help businesses grow. The report identifies a generation of immigrant-founded enterprises poised to break into the big time — or already there, like the Lams Group, one of the city’s most aggressive hotel developers, or Delgado Travel, which reaps roughly $1 billion in annual revenues.

In Los Angeles, at least 22 of the 100 fastest-growing companies in 2005 were created by first-generation immigrants. In Houston, a telecommunications company started by a Pakistani man topped the 2006 list of the city’s most successful small businesses.

But even in those cities and New York, where immigrant-friendly mayors have promoted programs to help small business, the report contends that immigrant entrepreneurs have been overlooked in long-term strategies for economic development.

. . .

Now, some children of the early influx are trying to build on their parents’ success — success that itself has increased the cost of doing business, by driving up rents and creating congestion.

One example is Jay Joshua, a Manhattan company that designs souvenirs and then has them manufactured in Asia and imported. Jay Chung, who arrived from South Korea in 1981 as a graduate student in design, started printing his computer-graphic designs for New York logos and peddling them to local T-shirt shops. His company is now one of the city’s leading suppliers of tourist items, from New York-loving coffee mugs to taxicab Christmas ornaments.

Mr. Chung’s son Joshua, 26, who was 3 when he immigrated, joined the company after studying business management in college, and recently helped land orders for a new line of Chicago souvenirs. But frustration mixes with pride when the Chungs, both American citizens now, discuss the company’s growth.

“It’s really hard to conduct a business over here as a wholesaler,” Mr. Chung said in the company’s West 27th Street showroom, chockablock with samples. “We get a ticket every 20 minutes, no matter what. We need more convenient places with less rent, less traffic.”

Thirty years ago their wholesale district was desolate. Now hundreds of Korean-American importers are there, said Jay Chung, who is a leader of the local Korean-American business association. They face a blizzard of parking tickets and high commercial rents — nearly $20,000 a month for 1,400 square feet, he said.

For the full story, see:

NINA BERNSTEIN. "Immigrant Entrepreneurs Shape a New Economy." The New York Times (Tues., February 6, 2007): C13.

(Note: the ellipses are added.)

The author of the New York Times article has contributed to a New York Times digital video clip that is based on the article and is entitled "Immigrant Entrepreneurs: A Tour of One Bustling Ethnic Enclave."

Entrepreneur father Jay and son Joshua own a firm that supplies New York City souveniers. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article cited above.

Source of graph: online version of the NYT article cited above.

Job Market Resilience: Going to the Dogs

Patrick Logue the former real estate agent and current dog trainer. Source of photo: online version of the WSJ article cited below.

Selling homes has turned into a dog-eat-dog business, so Patrick Logue decided to work with some friendlier canines.

Mr. Logue quit his job as a real-estate agent near Fort Myers, Fla., in December. Then he set up shop as a franchisee of the dog-training chain Bark Busters. So far, he says, "I have zero regrets."

. . .

Mr. Logue, a 34-year-old former golf pro, became an agent for the Assist-2-Sell franchise chain in the Fort Myers area about three years ago. He says his commission income was nearly $100,000 in his first year and $180,000 in his second. Then it plunged to $40,000 last year. "Nothing was selling," he says.

For the full story, see:

JAMES R. HAGERTY and ANJALI ATHAVALEY. "Amid Slump, Real-Estate Agents Hang Up Their Blazers; Housing Downturn Leads To an Industry Shakeout; Seeking Alternative Careers." The Wall Street Journal (Weds., February 7, 2007): B6.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

German Brain Drain

Engineer Benedikt Thoma is moving his family to Canada from Germany for a brighter future. Source of photo: online verion of the NYT article cited below.

ESCHBORN, Germany, Feb. 3 — Benedikt Thoma recalls the moment he began to think seriously about leaving Germany. It was in 2004, at a New Year’s Day reception in nearby Frankfurt, and the guest speaker, a prominent politician, was lamenting the fact that every year thousands of educated Germans turn their backs on their homeland.

“That struck me like a bolt of lightning,” said Mr. Thoma, 44, an engineer then running his family’s elevator company. “I asked myself, ‘Why should I stay here when the future is brighter someplace else?’ ”

In December, as his work with the company became an intolerable grind because of labor disputes, Mr. Thoma quit and made plans to move to Canada. In its wide-open spaces he hopes to find the future that he says is dwindling at home. As soon as he lands a job, Mr. Thoma, his wife, Petra, and their two teenage sons will join the ranks of Germany’s emigrants.

There has been a steady exodus over the years, but it has recently become Topic A in a land already saddled with one of the most rapidly aging and shrinking populations of any Western nation. With evidence that more professionals are leaving now than in past years, politicians and business executives warn about the loss of their country’s best and brightest.

. . .

. . . , there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that Germany has become less attractive for people in fields like medicine, academic research and engineering. Those who leave cite chronic unemployment, a rigid labor market, stifling bureaucracy, high taxes and the plodding economy — which, though better recently, still lags behind that of the United States.

. . .

In Mr. Thoma’s view, the root of the problem is [that] . . . Germany, . . . , has a “blockage” in its society.

“Germans are so complacent,” he said, sitting at the dining table in his neat-as-a-pin home here. “They don’t want to change anything. Everything is discussed endlessly without ever reaching a solution.”

As an example he cites the stalemate between his family’s firm and its 89 employees. After the firm became unionized, he said, the two sides began bickering over wages and working conditions.

With much of his 80-hour workweeks eaten up by those disputes, Mr. Thoma said he had developed high blood pressure and other ailments. He told his brothers he was burned out and ready to leave.

For the full story, see:

MARK LANDLER. "Germany Agonizes Over a Brain Drain." The New York Times (Tues., February 6, 2007): A10.

(Note: ellipses added.)

Source of graphic: online verion of the NYT article cited above.

Rock Icon Abandons France Because of High Taxes

French rock icon Johnny Hallyday. Source of photo: http://hosted.ap.org/photos/6/6b7deb53-a318-477d-90b7-fb5abe488774-big.jpg

In the dark of winter, the French rock ‘n’ roll icon Johnny Hallyday has abandoned France to settle in a snow-dusted mountain chalet, joining a scattered flock of superrich tax refugees in serene Switzerland.

Numbering about 3,700, according to Swiss statistics, these millionaire and billionaire exiles are variously coveted and resented in Switzerland, where local governments are competing in what critics scorn as a fierce race to the bottom to lure wealthy foreigners with individually negotiated tax breaks.

”I’m sick of paying, that’s all,” Mr. Hallyday, 63, said in a rebellious outburst to the celebrity magazine Paris Match, which devoted eight pages to his departure. ”I believe that after all the work I have done over nearly 50 years, my family should be able to live in some serenity. But 70 percent of everything I earn goes to taxes.”

The notion of a French symbol decamping to a newly renovated refuge in the town of Gstaad had an incendiary effect on French politics, prompting President Jacques Chirac to express restrained regrets about the rocker’s actions.

For the full story, see:

DOREEN CARVAJAL. "Swiss Tax Deals Lure the Superrich, but Are They Fair?" The New York Times, Section 1 (Sun., January 14, 2007): – B11.

Hallyday’s chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland. Source of photo: http://www.20minutes.fr/articles/2006/12/20/20061220-people-A-Gstaad-le-chalet-de-Johnny-fait-etrique-pour-une-rock-star.php

Labor is “Responsible for the Consequences of Their Choice”

An early free-market economist claims that in a free-market economy, a worker’s happiness depends mainly on her own actions:

But whenever property is secure, industry free, and the public burdens moderate, the happiness or misery of the labouring classes depends almost wholly on themselves. Government has there done for them all that it should, and all in truth that it can do. It has given them security and freedom. But the use or abuse of these inestimable advantages is their own affair. They may be either provident or improvident, industrious or idle; and being free to choose, they are alone responsible for the consequences of their choice.

The passage was brought to my attention by an HES Posting from Michael Perelman. The thread was continued by Torsten Schmidt, and the final information on the pages where the passage may be found, was added by Masazumi Wakatabe.

The reference for the source of the passage is:

McCulloch, J.R. A Treatise on the Circumstances which Determine the Rate of Wages and the Condition of the Labouring Classes, second edition, corrected and improved, 1854, 16-17.

Pay Rebounds in Silicon Valley

Source of graphic: online version of the WSJ article cited below.

Silicon Valley’s nascent economic recovery gathered steam last year, with the nation’s technology capital adding more than 30,000 jobs and showing gains in areas such as average annual wages and household income.

That was the conclusion of an annual report from Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a nonprofit group representing businesses and government agencies in the San Francisco and San Jose, Calif., area.

"Silicon Valley is back and it’s rebooting," said Russell Hancock, Joint Venture’s president and chief executive. "This is familiar since the Valley has already done it five or six times over its history. It regroups, then reboots."

The report comes as Silicon Valley, which prospered during the dot-com frenzy in the late 1990s, has struggled to remake itself in the wake of the tech crash in 2000. In the years since, the region has experienced job losses and a slowdown in growth at many tech companies. The area began to turn the corner in 2005 when a net gain of 2,000 jobs was recorded, the first time since 2001 that there had been an overall increase in jobs. Start-up activity has also become widespread again, with Internet firms specializing in online video, social networking and "clean technology" springing up.

For the full story, see:

PUI-WING TAM. "No Longer Down in Silicon Valley Jobs, Wages Show Gains As Bust Fades Further; Small Firms Fuel Rebound." The Wall Street Journal (Mon., January 29, 2007): B5.

Union Decline Continues in United States

Source of graphic: online version of the NYT article cited below.

Union membership dropped sharply last year in the United States, as the percentage of manufacturing workers in unions fell below the percentage of American workers in unions for the first time in modern history.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday that union membership fell by 326,000 in 2006, to 15.4 million workers, bringing the percentage of employees in unions to 12 percent, down from 12.5 percent in 2005. Those figures are down from 20 percent in 1983 and from 35 percent in the 1950s.

Work force experts said the decline in union membership was caused by large-scale layoffs and buyouts in the auto industry and other manufacturing industries, together with the labor movement’s difficulties in organizing nonunion workers fast enough to offset those losses.

For the full story, see:

STEVEN GREENHOUSE. "Sharp Decline in Union Members in ’06." The New York Times (Fri., January 26, 2007): A11.