4 ms·

> Everyone who fears immigration is going to take their job should read this and realize that fear is not only false This is only because immigrants are willin

> Everyone who fears immigration is going to take their job should read this and realize that fear is not only false This is only because immigrants are willing to do jobs at wages and working conditions that locals do not accept. Employers in the Finnish berry industry were just jailed for human trafficking. Meanwhile the same companies have been loudly complaining that no Finn wants to work for them.

matheusmoreira 12d ago
But would the corporarions raise salaries and improve conditions if they had literally no other choice? That is the question. Unionization demonstrably leverages benefits out of corporations, so I'm inclined to think that immigration bans would have the same effect.
- hnfong 12d ago
  That's the question the article was trying to answer. >>> "If you don't allow firms to hire immigrant workers, they just become smaller firms," Lewis said. "They are not replaced with US workers. Instead, the output of the firm shrinks, and there are fewer total workers." So, no, if they had no choice they just shrink their operations, it seems. The apparent conclusion is that immigration bans will just force those companies to reduce operations or shut down, instead of paying higher wages to locals.
  - matheusmoreira 12d ago
    In this experiment, only some firms lost access to foreign labor. The outcome could have been different had all of them lost access due to a foreign labor ban.
  - mejutoco 12d ago
    They could open subsidiaries in other countries instead. Corporations are multinational entities.
jltsiren 12d ago
Finnish wild berry industry does not really make sense. Imported cultivated berries set an effective price ceiling, which isn't high enough to hire Finnish workers. The ones you could hire are not productive enough, and the ones who could get the job done have better options. There are similar issues in agriculture, hospitality, and construction. Many jobs are seasonal and require you to live away from home. And because the outputs are supposed to be affordable, they don't pay enough to support you for the rest of the year. So you need an actual job, which is probably nicer and pays enough that you don't want the seasonal job anymore.
- kakacik 12d ago
  > And because the outputs are supposed to be affordable Well market forces will quickly align these back to reality, unless somebody will keep pumping in tons of money to subsidize this.
  - mitxela 12d ago
    Possibly by shutting down the entire berry industry. That's a possible outcome of market forces.
  - TeMPOraL 12d ago
    > unless somebody will keep pumping in tons of money to subsidize this I think this is where the distinction between "imported" and "locally produced" berries becomes important. My guess is there are interests pumping money to keep local production going.
keeda 11d ago
> This is only because immigrants are willing to do jobs at wages and working conditions that locals do not accept. I would partially disagree with this assertion (immigrants are clearly very constrained in their job mobility, and their wages are correspondingly suppressed) but what TFA and other similar studies and history show, it's not like wages increase for native employees with lower immigration. Typically what happens is that there just aren't enough people to do the work, and so the work just doesn't get done, which is why businesses just don't grow. Sometimes the economics just don't work out. Relevant berry-related example, California farmers often have had to let entire years' worth of strawberries rot in the field when they could not find enough farmhands to pick them. And they did try raising wages and perks: https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/california-farmers-have-raised-wages-still-unable-find-enough-workers https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/california-farmers-have-ra... But sometimes even with the right economics there just are not enough workers. TFA gels with my experience working in Tech in the US for almost 2 decades, conducting countless interviews for positions that I know paid very well, and just not finding enough qualified candidates regardless of visa status, which constantly put significant constraints on our roadmaps.

matheusmoreira 12d ago

But would the corporarions raise salaries and improve conditions if they had literally no other choice? That is the question. Unionization demonstrably leverages benefits out of corporations, so I'm inclined to think that immigration bans would have the same effect.

hnfong 12d ago
That's the question the article was trying to answer. >>> "If you don't allow firms to hire immigrant workers, they just become smaller firms," Lewis said. "They are not replaced with US workers. Instead, the output of the firm shrinks, and there are fewer total workers." So, no, if they had no choice they just shrink their operations, it seems. The apparent conclusion is that immigration bans will just force those companies to reduce operations or shut down, instead of paying higher wages to locals.
- matheusmoreira 12d ago
  In this experiment, only some firms lost access to foreign labor. The outcome could have been different had all of them lost access due to a foreign labor ban.
- mejutoco 12d ago
  They could open subsidiaries in other countries instead. Corporations are multinational entities.

jltsiren 12d ago

Finnish wild berry industry does not really make sense. Imported cultivated berries set an effective price ceiling, which isn't high enough to hire Finnish workers. The ones you could hire are not productive enough, and the ones who could get the job done have better options. There are similar issues in agriculture, hospitality, and construction. Many jobs are seasonal and require you to live away from home. And because the outputs are supposed to be affordable, they don't pay enough to support you for the rest of the year. So you need an actual job, which is probably nicer and pays enough that you don't want the seasonal job anymore.

kakacik 12d ago
> And because the outputs are supposed to be affordable Well market forces will quickly align these back to reality, unless somebody will keep pumping in tons of money to subsidize this.
- mitxela 12d ago
  Possibly by shutting down the entire berry industry. That's a possible outcome of market forces.
- TeMPOraL 12d ago
  > unless somebody will keep pumping in tons of money to subsidize this I think this is where the distinction between "imported" and "locally produced" berries becomes important. My guess is there are interests pumping money to keep local production going.

keeda 11d ago

> This is only because immigrants are willing to do jobs at wages and working conditions that locals do not accept. I would partially disagree with this assertion (immigrants are clearly very constrained in their job mobility, and their wages are correspondingly suppressed) but what TFA and other similar studies and history show, it's not like wages increase for native employees with lower immigration. Typically what happens is that there just aren't enough people to do the work, and so the work just doesn't get done, which is why businesses just don't grow. Sometimes the economics just don't work out. Relevant berry-related example, California farmers often have had to let entire years' worth of strawberries rot in the field when they could not find enough farmhands to pick them. And they did try raising wages and perks: https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/california-farmers-have-raised-wages-still-unable-find-enough-workers https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/california-farmers-have-ra... But sometimes even with the right economics there just are not enough workers. TFA gels with my experience working in Tech in the US for almost 2 decades, conducting countless interviews for positions that I know paid very well, and just not finding enough qualified candidates regardless of visa status, which constantly put significant constraints on our roadmaps.