Do Immigrants Cost Native Workers Jobs?

Do Immigrants Cost Native Workers Jobs?

Introduction

There is increasing concern that immigrants depress the wages of native workers and jeopardize their employment. The wages of native workers are continually insulated by differences in skills as well as changes in demand and the rise of immigration. There is a widespread belief that immigrants take jobs from the native labor force and they crowd out job opportunities. There are various mechanisms that allow immigrant-receiving economies to absorb the immigrant population.One major occurrence is that when immigrants move into a particular local economy then the native workers with similar skills will often move out. However, the skill composition and the employment trends will remain unchanged in such an occurrence. Native workers will often respond to immigration but this does not mean that employment trends will actually change. Immigrants do not take native worker jobs but instead offer alternative labor at cheaper costs in the market and are willing to take up the jobs which native workers decline.

Assessing the effect of Immigrants on Native Workers’ Jobs

It is important to consider that immigration has cross skill effects that should be considered. Firms will also respond to an increased supply of immigrant workers by adjusting the capital. One should also consider the potential productivity effects of immigration on the general economy. Cross skill, effects will substantially reduce the negative wage impacts of the immigrant population. An increase in the available workers will mean that the existing firms in the region will have the opportunity to grow (McHenry 35).It is also important to consider that immigrants will often increase the efficiency of the economy by bringing in new skills and stimulating specialization and encouraging firm creation. Immigrants will also bring diversity because they bring different skills and are able to perform different tasks as compared to the native workers. Immigrants will, therefore, bring skill diversity and spur innovation and productivity within the job sector. Furthermore, firms will expand in response to an increase in immigrant workers and create new complementary jobs that will be filled by the native workers.

When the supply of particular skills rises in the local labor market then firms will decide to choose technologies that will ensure that these skills are used efficiently. The labor demand and labor supply model reveals that more immigrants in the labor market will depress the wages of national workers. Immigrants and native workers have different skills and immigrants will take the jobs that the natives do not want (McHenry 36).Immigrants will bring new skills into the host economy and this will spur innovation and lead to increased productivity. Immigrants will perform manual jobs at lower costs and the native workers will respond by taking a different job set. Specialization will occur because the natives will upgrade their jobs and protect their wages from the immigrant competition. Immigrants will, in fact, help organizations to reduce labor-related costs and the organizations will create complimentary jobs that the native workers will fill.

It is, therefore, true that immigrants do not take the jobs of native workers but in fact that they help to boost the employment sector. It is important to note that the lowly skilled immigrants may only compete in the short term but the effect is relatively small. The positive aspects of immigrants will often outweigh any potential negative aspects. Immigrants will rarely substitute directly for native workers but instead, they will complement the native workers. Because the immigrant workers take lowly jobs and offer cheap labor, they will increase the overall production of the firm (Borjas 19).The presence of immigrants will, therefore, increase demand and lead to an expansion of the organizations. An understanding of the traditional labor market reveals the equilibrium between wage and employment. Employers will often hire workers who are willing to work at a particular wage and employees who are willing to work at such a wage will take the job. Immigration is therefore advantageous because it will increase the supply of labor. Immigrants are therefore considered substitutes for native workers. It is important to understand that native workers and immigrants offer different approaches to the human capital. Furthermore, there are skill differences between new immigrants and the native workers.

Immigrants raise the price of inputs that they complement and they lower the price of inputs that they substitute. Immigrants fill vacancies at the organizational level because the native workers and the jobs available will not always match. It has been experienced that the native workers will often choose to shun the repetitive and low shills jobs and often prefer to stay unemployed than take such positions (Borjas 21).Immigrants, however, are willing to take these jobs willingly and therefore are instrumental in filling the labor gap. There are few instances where highly skilled immigrants may decide to take skilled positions in the job market. In a majority of cases, the labor markets can adapt to the supply of immigrant workers and the creation of efficient production processes helps to create a smooth transition. It is also false to say that immigrants displace native workers because they actually do not have access to the same jobs as the native workers.

Immigrants are usually placed in the lower tier job bracket to supplement the native workers. Furthermore, the immigrants who are self-employed and entrepreneurs may create jobs directly. Immigration will have a direct influence on the labor supply especially when the workers will increase the demand for goods and services as consumers. Higher demand will have a major effect on the labor market, as it will boost the demand for labor. However, it is true that there is often competition between the immigrants and the native workers who have the same skillset (Foged and Peri 5).The low skilled immigrant workers are often content with performing repetitive manual tasks at a lower cost and them, therefore, substitute capital. However, the employers may actually view the low skilled workers as a direct substitute. Immigrant and native workers with the same skillset may compete for jobs in the short term. Competiton may, however, arise where the recent immigrants and those who have stayed longer look for the same jobs.

However when the lowly skilled immigrants are hired with the highly skilled native workers then it will free the native workers to specialize and invest in education and training In the long run, some immigrants may invest in learning and may add to their qualifications thus putting them in direct competition with the native workers. However, this does not mean that they will receive priority over the native population. The main threat, however, comes from the fact that if low skilled immigrant workers enter a particular sector then they will often compete with the low skilled workers in that sector (Foged and Peri 12).Nevertheless, when the immigrants are clustered in routine jobs which are labor intensive then the native workers are able to specialize and upgrade their own skills. Immigrants will usually look for jobs and they tend to choose locations where jobs are readily available. However, the high and low skilled immigrants will rarely substitute the natives. It would, therefore, be wrong to assume that the immigrant workers displace the native workers.

The impact of the immigrant on the native labor market is one which has been classified as socially sensitive (Dustmann, Christian, Schönberg and Stuhler 442). An inflow of immigrants will lead to an outward shift in the labor supply and this will lead to a decrease in the equilibrium wage and increase in overall employment. When immigrant workers with the right skillset are available in the labor market, then organizations will increase output and therefore shift the labor demand (Peri 18).The closed economy setup within the large immigrant flow in a particular region will often affect the outflow of natives from one region to another. When the natives move out of a region where the immigration rates are higher than this would affect the economy. It is therefore important to assess the labor market impact of immigration by documenting adjustments occur at both an internal and external level within organizations.

Conclusion

It has been proven that immigrants affect various dimensions of the economic status of the host country, and immigration has a major impact on the labor market as well. Labor market efficiency will require that the labor distribution remains equal within different regions. Immigration will, therefore, improve the labor market because it will inject new labor into the economy. Immigrants offer a new dynamic in the labor market and the help improve productivity and output in the labor market. Furthermore, immigrants offer cheap labor and take up the job descriptions that the natives are adamant to take, Immigration, therefore, plays a major role in improving the labor market efficiency within the region. Immigrant workers are flexible and at the same time offer cheap labor for the nation.