Are Immigrants Displacing Black Workers?*

Daniel James Carrying Capacity Network

Amid the general rejoicing over the sharp decline in unemployment, we should not lose sight of the fact that blacks, the nation's largest minor- ity, actually suffered an increase in joblessness. Reporting on the job pic- ture in November 1993, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that black unemployment rose from 11.7 percent to 12.5 percent, and that in April 1994 it had barely changed, at 11.8 percent. Meanwhile, the national un- employment rate fell from 6.8 percent six months ago to 6.4 percent in April 1994, according to the Bureau. The white rate was even lower: 5.6 percent, about half that for blacks.

The difference was much greater for black teenagers (ages 16 to 19), whose unemployment rate rose from 36.5 percent in October 1993 to 41.9 percent in April 1994. Reports from the Bureau of Labor indicate that in contrast, unemployment among America's second largest minority His- panics, dropped from 11.5 percent last Fall to 10.8 percent in April. Is it coincidence that Hispanic employment rose while that of blacks fell? A September 1993 Wall Street Journal analysis of reporting to the Equal Em- ployment Opportunity Commission found that "blacks were the only racial group to suffer a net job loss during the 1990-91 economic downturn," while "whites, Hispanics, and Asians . . . gained thousands of jobs." (Copies of the full WSJ report are available free of charge for CCN Partici- pants by calling 800-466-4866).

Though the author of the Journal's analysis, Rochelle Sharpe, was not seeking any linkage to immigration, she found that Asians and Hispanics

* Reprinted from Clearing House Bulletin, July, 1994. For additional information, please write Carrying Capacity Network, 2000 P Street NW,

Suite 240, Washington, DC 20036.

Population and Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies Volume 17, Number 1, September 1995 �9 1995 Human Sciences Press, Inc. 59

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"outnumber blacks nearly eight to one" at the companies surveyed. Yet blacks constitute 12.4 percent of the total population compared to the Hispanics' 8.7 and Asians' 3.3 percent, according to demographer Leon Bouvier. Blacks were "especially hard hit in blue-collar jobs"--a major source of employment for them--where they lost one-third of 180,210 such jobs, Sharpe further reported. And "they were the only group to lose service-worker positions"--another important source of employment.

A direct co-relation between immigration and black unemployment was found in a study of South Central Los Angeles made after the April 1992 riots. A team led by the black sociologist, James H. Johnson, Jr., then head of the Urban Poverty Project at University of California at Los An- geles, found massive displacement of blacks in jobs and housing in South Central Los Angeles. "Over the last two decades," it reported, "the commu- nity has been transformed from a predominantly black to a mixed black and Latino area. Today, nearly one-half of the South Central Los Angeles population is Latino."

The worst sufferers were black teenagers. The Johnson study found that in some cases about 50 percent of them were jobless (due mainly to the massive influx of immigrants in the 1980s), which tallies with the find- ings of Dr. Frank L. Morris, Dean of Graduate Studies at Morgan State University in Baltimore. Testifying in October before the Commission on Immigration Reform, a congressionally-appointed body, Morris stated that the national jobless rate among inner city black youths is "more than 50 percent." That, he added pointedly, is "close . . . to the 48 percent of all prison inmates in the U.S. being African Americans."

Dr. Morris, who previously served as Executive Director of the Con- gressional Black Caucus, hastened to note, however:

"Immigrants are not the cause of the increasingly difficult plight of African Americans. The important questions are whether our current levels of mass immigration are making the situation worse for African Americans, and whether there will be more conflict and tension in our society if present trends--especially immigration trends--continue unabated. I believe that the an- swer to both questions is yes, because high immigration levels along with other devastating trends impact more on the African American community than on any other ethnic group."

Immigrants appear to be displacing blacks in jobs where skill and edu- cational requirements are relatively low. This is true especially of recent Hispanic immigrants, the great majority of whom are found to be low-

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skilled and undereducated (see studies by George Borjas and others). Thus, as Dr. Morris reports, they have "succeeded in displacing African American workers in such areas as construction, restaurant and hospitality services, and light manufacturing, in many cities."

Why, assuming the same levels of competence and skill among recent Hispanic immigrants and blacks, and given the major advantage that blacks are native-born Americans who speak English fluently, are the for- mer gaining jobs at their expense?

The answer, agree most immigration experts, is that immigrants are generally willing to work for lower wages and tolerate substandard work- ing and health conditions, whereas Americans are not. Examples abound of employers who take advantage of the immigrants, who are usually poor, desperate for work to support themselves in a strange new land, and in constant fear of deportation particularly if they are here illegally.

Another important factor militating against blacks in the workplace is race discrimination. The Wall Street Journal cited examples of such dis- crimination in several of the big companies the Equal Employment Oppor- tunity Commission analyzed, reporting that blacks "lost 5,823 sales jobs overall in 1991, for instance, even though companies added a net total of more than 63,000 white, Asian and Hispanic sales workers." John Work, a career consultant and the author of "Race, Economics and Corporate America," categorically states (as quoted in the Journal): "There is a con- tinuing problem that white companies will not buy from a black sales- man."

Indeed, discrimination against black labor has historically been com- pounded by high levels of U.S. immigration. At the takeoff of American industry after the Civil War, the newly freed slaves constituted a huge pool of workers available to employers. Instead, America turned to Europe to relieve a virtually universal labor shortage, notwithstanding pleas from black leaders to "cast down the bucket where you are," in the telling phrase Booker T. Washington uttered at the Atlanta Exposition in 1895. The result was the biggest influx of immigrants in American history until now.

American history has apparently now come full circle. Today's un- paralleled mass immigration largely repeats the same old process that im- peded employment of large numbers of American blacks. Only this time there is less excuse. If in the final decades of the nineteenth century Amer- ica could "justify" the need for foreign workers to fill a labor shortage, at the end of the twentieth century not even the semblance of such a shortage exists: Though unemployment is lower than it has been for some time, at least temporarily, it still afflicts 8.3 million workers, of which nearly 2 mil- lion are blacks, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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The real dilemma of current U.S. immigration policy is that it so nega- tively affects one of the most disadvantaged groups in America--inner city blacks. As Dr. Morris points out, "America is the only country in the world that has mass immigration at a time of slow growth and industrial restruc- turing of the economy." Like the doctor's old adage for restoring health, a sound immigration policy should seek to "first do no harm." It would seem the better part of economic sense, not to speak of humanitarian concern for fellow Americans, to find jobs for our unemployed millions before permit- ting further immigration of working-age foreigners with its attendant dis- placement of more Americans.