About Those Jobs Americans Won’t Do
The whole issue of illegal immigration is complicated by firmly held beliefs on both sides of the debate. One of these is the "immigrants do the jobs Americans won't". That is used as an excuse for the enormous numbers of illegals employed in agriculture (estimated at more than one quarter million for California alone during peak seasons.)
But what if they are not needed? And they likely will not be in the very near future.
LOS ANGELES - With authorities promising tighter borders, some farmers who rely on immigrant labor are eyeing an emerging generation of fruit-picking robots and high-tech tractors to do everything from pluck premium wine grapes to clean and core lettuce.
Such machines, now in various stages of development, could become essential for harvesting delicate fruits and vegetables that are still picked by hand.
"If we want to maintain our current agriculture here in California, that's where mechanization comes in," said Jack King, national affairs manager for the California Farm Bureau.
California harvests about half the nation's fruits, nuts and vegetables, according to the state Food and Agriculture Department. The California Farm Bureau Federation estimates that the job requires about 225,000 workers year-round and double that during the peak summer season.
More than half of all farm workers in the country are illegal immigrants, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics.
Last year, amid heightened immigration enforcement, California's seasonal migration was marked by spot worker shortages, and some fruit was left to rot in the fields.
"There's a lot of very nervous people out there in agriculture in terms of what's going to be available in the labor force," said Robert Wample, viticulture and enology program director at California State University, Fresno.
Mechanized picking wouldn't be new for some California crops such as canning tomatoes, low-grade wine grapes and nuts.
But the fresh produce that dominates the state's agricultural output — and that consumers expect to find unblemished in supermarkets — is too fragile to be picked by the machines now in use.
But the new machines, some already quite far along in development, will likely be able to replace the unskilled labor even for the delicate produce. A company called Vision Robotics is testing a fruit picker.
So that brings up the question: What do the displaced workers do when the machines take over these jobs? More importantly, what does society do with them? I know there's a number of people who are in favor of serfdom, I don't happen to be one of them.
So, what do we do?
Immigration Reform | Gaius Thursday, 6 September , 2007
By quilly mammoth, Thursday, 6 September , 2007 @ 11:42 am
Next question. With housing slowing down dramatically why aren’t we seeing unemployment skyrocket?
Couldn’t possibly be that the building trades are so loaded with illegals…who being illegal have almost no recourse…that the likely widespread layoofs don’t show up?
I suspect they go home.
By FedUp, Thursday, 6 September , 2007 @ 12:32 pm
Oh for Pete’s sake! Deport the illegals and then make all the criminals in jail go out and harvest the crops! That should keep the crooks busy so they don’t get in trouble, we’d get cheap labor and then the illegals can spend their copious free time reforming their own country!!!
I’m tired of hearing that no American wants those jobs! I think that depends on how badly they want to eat!
By Robert, Thursday, 6 September , 2007 @ 3:33 pm
No Americans want those jobs…at such low wages.
There’s the rub. It also answers the question about why W and gang aren’t against illegals.
Republican voters think they are the Republican party’s constituents.
They’re not. American businesses are.
By Gaius, Thursday, 6 September , 2007 @ 3:36 pm
And Barbara Boxer is what?
http://profiles.numbersusa.com/improfile.php3?DistSend=CA&VIPID=49