In February of this year, the article New farm labor rules comming, announced the Department of Labor's amendment of the H-2A program which now requires "employers who seek work visas for foreign workers [to]...document that they [also] sought qualified U.S. workers" for the same jobs. This new law was supposedly designed to protect jobs for U.S. Citizens as it encourages employers to use Citizens rather than foreign workers.
However, I believe that the exact opposite outcome will occur. Instead of protecting jobs, litigation like this will shift the job supply curve to the left as red tape and other road blocks like this will tempt employers to move their businesses overseas where they will have more freedom to act as they please.
Tom Nassif, President of Western Growers, commented on this new law and shared his feelings in regards to how the very job the law is supposed to protect only makes them more scarce when the said, "We know our produce is going to be harvested by foreign workers, the question is, will it be here in the U.S. or will it be abroad?"
Clearly, laws like this have good intentions but their ramifications only make doing business harder and less desirable in the U.S. I believe the solution to this problem is to deregulate business and to allow the "invisible hand" of markets to dictate terms and not the Government.
6 comments:
This came up in ECON 2500 just this morning.
They're learning linear programming.
An essential feature of linear programming is the division of the universe of production possibilities into what is feasible and what is not.
And ... additional constraints on business behavior never make that feasible set larger, and sometimes make it smaller.
-1 on Walla Walla for spelling (waived because it is the first week).
This new rule seems to be a poorly disguised attempt to discourage immigration. The unfortunate fact is that while it is true that immigrant workers often send a considerable portion of their wages back to their home countries, this law will not necessarily keep that money in the United States even with lower numbers of immigrant workers.
I agree, the more the government tries to fix things the worse they make it. The “invisible hand” works. As our country continues to grow by creating new ideas (the latest technology), lower level (simple) jobs are better outsourced to countries that are still “catching up”. Why would we want to force our workers to do labor for work that is unprofitable for them to do? If the jobs were profitable for US workers, there would be no incentive to higher foreign workers. However, regulation should be used to insure that the foreign workers are not being taken advantaged of.
By outsourcing some jobs, both the US and other countries benefit. We continue to grow with new ideas as well as purchase cheaper products from others who can create them for less. These countries in return buy our products that they cannot create on there own (this is the round about way to wealth).
-1 on MIA for spelling.
Exactly how would we regulate "foreign" workers if they're not here?
Post a Comment