Unemployed U.S.-born workers seek day-labor jobs

[Liberal_in_LA]

Unemployed U.S.-born workers seek day-labor jobs

By Emily Bazar, USA TODAY

Growing ranks of U.S. citizens are heading to street corners and home improvement store parking lots to find day-labor work usually done by illegal immigrants.
The trend is most pronounced in regions where hot construction markets have collapsed, says Abel Valenzuela Jr., a professor of urban planning at the University of California-Los Angeles.

"You had many, many unemployed construction workers who found themselves without any permanent or stable work," he says. "Some of them have gone on to seek employment by standing on street corners alongside immigrant workers."


DESPERATION: More seek day-labor jobs, but work is scarce

Day laborers gather at high-traffic spots such as busy intersections and home improvement stores, looking for pick-up work such as painting, laying bricks or landscaping. Contractors and homeowners describe the jobs and negotiate pay on the spot.

Valenzuela estimates the proportion of U.S.-born day laborers has at least doubled since he released a report in 2006, when his research showed they made up 7% of the day-labor workforce. At that time, Valenzuela estimated 117,600 people were looking for or doing day-labor jobs on any given day. Illegal immigrants were 75% of the day-labor workforce; the rest were legal immigrants.

"It's becoming more ethnically diverse. On the corners, I've seen white people, I've seen African Americans and a lot of Mexican Americans," says Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. "When unemployment benefits run out, I expect to see more."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-11-29-citizen-day-laborers_N.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclude=Juno

[medeak]

1. Vegas paper just had write up

interviewing 50 yr old white men in front of Home Depot where Hispanics once were.

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. There was a middle aged white man standing on a major LA street, selling bottle of water

Sign said he has kids to support