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These are both statements about pay. These statements mean they can't find anyone at the wages they're willing to pay to work. If they pay enough, they will have all the people they need, and more, apply. Expanding the labor pool through immigration means there will be people willing to work at the wages they're willing to pay, which holds down wages.l
It seems like the anti-immigrant posters here don't understand that Maine has a labor shortage due to its older population and record low unemployment rates. Maine employers seek to hire foreign workers because they can't find native Mainers to fill jobs. You can't blame that all on low wages, as if the employers are to blame and not the availability of workers. A labor shortage doesn't mean people aren't willing to work for a given wage. It means there are not enough people available for work.
Quote about wages from that site: "Regulations require that the wages attested to on foreign labor certification applications must be the average wage paid to all other workers in the requested occupation in the area of intended employment. This average wage is referred to as the prevailing wage." The average deckhand wage in Maine is $22 an hour.
I'm guessing that no one in this forum would be willing to work on a lobster boat at any wage.
Last November Susan Collins (Republican) and Angus King (Independent) asked the federal government to double the number of visas for temporary foreign workers in Maine. Why? Because small businesses can't find local workers. According to the Portland Press Herald, "Leading up to this past [2023] summer, 70% of businesses that spoke with the Maine Tourism Association said they’d be understaffed for the season."
It's important to distinguish what is happening at the southern US border from what is happening in Maine. My original post was only about how Maine is solving its labor shortage problem proactively on behalf of small businesses. That has nothing to do with illegal immigration at the southern border. The Maine forum isn't the right place to debate that issue.
It would be good if the Maine forum could project an image of welcoming visitors and new residents, in tune with the state's very long history of hospitality.
It seems like the anti-immigrant posters here don't understand that Maine has a labor shortage due to its older population and record low unemployment rates. Maine employers seek to hire foreign workers because they can't find native Mainers to fill jobs. You can't blame that all on low wages, as if the employers are to blame and not the availability of workers. A labor shortage doesn't mean people aren't willing to work for a given wage. It means there are not enough people available for work.
This stands at odds with my personal observations from among my tenants.
There are plenty enough job openings for them, but they are not willing to work.
I require that our new tenants must be employed. So people come to me with cash in fist and fulltime employment, and as soon as they can get the town's General Assistance office to start paying their rent, these same tenants quit their jobs.
I have a dozen of these tenants. It is the same story with each of them.
Let's address this from an economic standpoint, rather than assuming what other peoples' motives are.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Last1Standing
It seems like the anti-immigrant posters here don't understand that Maine has a labor shortage due to its older population and record low unemployment rates. Maine employers seek to hire foreign workers because they can't find native Mainers to fill jobs. You can't blame that all on low wages, as if the employers are to blame and not the availability of workers. A labor shortage doesn't mean people aren't willing to work for a given wage. It means there are not enough people available for work.
Some immigration is good for the country. People with highly valuable skills come here from all over the world. There aren't enough people here with the skills they have, and them coming here enables companies here to create much more value than they could if those folks didn't come here. No wages are driven down by these folks coming here and contributing to our economy, because the jobs would be moved overseas and foreign companies would benefit from them if they didn't come here.
The above is not the norm, it's the exception. For many jobs, they either exist here or they don't exist. Think of it this way: There is infinite demand for labor at $0 per hour. There is huge, but less than infinite, demand for labor at $1 per hour. As the wage goes up, the demand for labor goes down. There is a set amount of labor available, and it will go to the highest paying (=> highest value creation) jobs. By definition jobs will go unfilled, e.g., all of the jobs that only pay $0 per hour. That just means the value created by those jobs is not sufficient to pay for the labor required to create it.
But if you increase the labor pool through immigration, now there is enough labor to fill lower paying jobs. And the additional supply of labor means there's wage pressure on all such jobs, not just the specific ones being filled by the new labor. Supply / demand curves apply to labor as much as they do to goods and services. Increasing the supply of labor without high value skills means more demand for low wage labor will be filled, lowering wages.
Saying there's a labor shortage is meaningless, because there is always a shortage of labor for jobs that pay $0 / hour. A better way to look at this is what is the minimum amount that must be paid to employ all of the available labor. The goal of government should be to maximize this value, as that goes directly to standard of living for its residents.
Quote about wages from that site: "Regulations require that the wages attested to on foreign labor certification applications must be the average wage paid to all other workers in the requested occupation in the area of intended employment. This average wage is referred to as the prevailing wage." The average deckhand wage in Maine is $22 an hour.
What you're quoting here is just reinforcing my point above - the prevailing wage is what's being paid. If you refuse to increase the labor supply to hold wages down, average wages will go up because the jobs being filled will be for higher value creation activities. If you increase the labor supply more lower value creation jobs will be filled, and the prevailing wage will go down. Will jobs go unfilled by not increasing the labor supply? Yes, because there is always demand for labor at lower wages than there is supply to fill them. Again, this is just basic supply / demand applied to labor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Last1Standing
I'm guessing that no one in this forum would be willing to work on a lobster boat at any wage.
Really? For $1million / hour I suspect anyone on this forum who's physically capable would do it. Same for $100k / hour. As the offered wage goes down, at some point someone will be unwilling to do it. As the wage drops from there more people will be unwilling to do it. At some wage no one will be willing to do it. This is a verbal description of the supply / demand curve mentioned above, and described in the video I linked.
When businesses say they can't find anyone to work a job, they're saying the wage they're willing to pay falls into that last category, it's so low that no one is willing to do it because literally everyone has better options. Maybe instead of looking for people desperate enough to work for subsistence wages, they should spend some time thinking about what they can do in their business to create more value, so they can pay better wages and get the labor they need.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Last1Standing
Last November Susan Collins (Republican) and Angus King (Independent) asked the federal government to double the number of visas for temporary foreign workers in Maine. Why? Because small businesses can't find local workers. According to the Portland Press Herald, "Leading up to this past [2023] summer, 70% of businesses that spoke with the Maine Tourism Association said they’d be understaffed for the season."
Of course they did! They're responding to the businesses they represent. Read what you wrote - "small businesses can't find local workers". Let's finish that sentence - "at the low wages they're willing to pay." Back to the labor supply / demand curve, the wages they're willing to pay fall on the part of the curve where there are higher paying jobs available for all of the available labor - that's why they can't find local workers willing to take the job, workers have better options.
From a politician's point of view, they can make local businesses happy with them by advocating for low wage labor. Yes, this holds wages down and hurts their other constituents, but not enough people understand that so there's no political cost. Win / win (from the politicians' perspective).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Last1Standing
It's important to distinguish what is happening at the southern US border from what is happening in Maine. My original post was only about how Maine is solving its labor shortage problem proactively on behalf of small businesses. That has nothing to do with illegal immigration at the southern border. The Maine forum isn't the right place to debate that issue.
It would be good if the Maine forum could project an image of welcoming visitors and new residents, in tune with the state's very long history of hospitality.
It would be good if government policies were made to benefit all of the residents, instead of only a small subset of the residents that stand to benefit from wages being held down.
This stands at odds with my personal observations from among my tenants.
There are plenty enough job openings for them, but they are not willing to work.
I require that our new tenants must be employed. So people come to me with cash in fist and fulltime employment, and as soon as they can get the town's General Assistance office to start paying their rent, these same tenants quit their jobs.
I have a dozen of these tenants. It is the same story with each of them.
Submariner, I don't discount your personal experiences, but the state and federal governments' labor departments are in the business of collecting statistics about the entire state and country. You can't disbelieve both the state and federal governments and what Maine business owners are saying. They can't all be making up that there's a labor shortage.
Submariner, I don't discount your personal experiences, but the state and federal governments' labor departments are in the business of collecting statistics about the entire state and country. You can't disbelieve both the state and federal governments and what Maine business owners are saying. They can't all be making up that there's a labor shortage.
Businesses need employees.
We have very few people who are willing to hold a job.
Immigrants are generally willing to work and to pay taxes.
Imo those of us who live in Maine, especially along the coast where the majority of tourists tend to flock, have an understanding of the tourist industry and seasonal workers who get work visas and come from other countries as temporary seasonal workers. When the tourist season ends, the temporary workers leave. This has been going on for years. When the tourist season ends, most of the jobs disappear until the next season. Many businesses are not open year round because the tourists don't stay year round.
From what I've seen in my lifetime, tourism is tolerated for economic reasons. In recent years, the number of visitors has increased from 2 million to 4+ million tourists descending upon Acadia National Park and the surrounding area annually. There is an excessive amount of traffic, long waits for just about everything, overcrowded hiking trails, overcrowded stores, overcrowded sidewalks etc. Is anyone concerned about how this is affecting the environment.
If the immigrants in Maine are here illegally, did they enter crossing the Southern border or the Northern border or were they flown in to Maine? If they are here illegally, they are here illegally regardless of how they got here. Illegal immigration is illegal immigration. The Maine forum seems like the place to discuss illegal immigrants who are in Maine as well as other Maine topics.
Last edited by mainegrl2011; 04-22-2024 at 07:34 AM..
This is the Maine forum, so let's talk about Maine. The topic I raised in my original post is: the legal employment in Maine of legal immigrants. To work in Maine an immigrant needs a work permit. A work permit is only issued to people who are in Maine legally. All of the employees mentioned in the article are in Maine legally. Feel free to open a thread on illegal immigrants, but my interest here is legal immigrants. An important topic for the Maine economy...
Define "legal", because it appears that too many in government have no idea what that means...nor does the media.
It seems like the anti-immigrant posters here don't understand that Maine has a labor shortage due to its older population and record low unemployment rates. Maine employers seek to hire foreign workers because they can't find native Mainers to fill jobs...
The problem is not just one level.
We also have a population that demands absurd compensation.
I took on yet another job (part time, I can't do 80 hrs a week anymore like I used to), and during the interview, I was asked what I believe I'm worth. They have a "never done this before", and/or "this is my first job ever" starting wage, up to "experienced" pay. I have a LOT of experience, and their top pay was pretty good, so I gave them a number that was just a bit higher than their top "experienced" pay. Pointed out what was on my resume, and included further information that wasn't spelled out on the resume. I got what I asked for.
I point this out because they then told me how, in a previous interview with a person who was just starting out, had no experience, no real skills to show in regards to the job, unbelievably asked for $10 MORE per hour than I asked for, as their starting wage.
They laughed about it, I was in complete shock. It is crazy what some people think they 'deserve' with no relative skills to do the job, nor any experience at all working a job. While I understand that many in this country think that they are being screwed over by 'the man', in some cases, some of these people are completely out of touch with their 'worth'.
The business is there to make money, not give it away. It's not that we 'need' 'legal immigrants', (who do keep wages down because they will work for the lower pay - which for some, it doesn't matter since they get 2 years of free fricken rent), it's that somewhere along the line, younger people have somehow come to this idea that they 'deserve' a certain amount that they can't back up, in addition to a ton of people who moved here from much pricier states. My theory is that they are used to living with everything they ever wanted, had higher incomes (because of where they lived), and expect to have the same thing in Maine.
What gets me is how fast this all happened. I left Maine in 2015. When I left, family still typically took over specialty jobs, like working on farms, lobster boats, etc. It was almost impossible to get a job like that unless you were a family member, or they had known you since the day you were born, or they were familiar with someone who knew you since the day you were born.
I moved back in 2023, and the difference is shocking. A punch in the face in the southern part, and a slap in the face up in the Bangor area.
Maine does have some wealthy people, but overall, the majority were not wealthy, but got by with what they had, their knowledge, and their willingness to create instead of having everything handed to them.
It would also be nice if we could turn back 'full time' to meaning 40 hours a week, not 32. But, again, some people voted themselves out of an additional 32 hours of pay each month because of perks/benefits, which they would get had they worked their way up and got the jobs that gave those out without reducing hours to create a new definition of 'full time'.
Instead of learning anything from changes that were made to 'benefit' workers, we will keep allowing propaganda machines, and paid off government creatures, to tell us what is best for us. It's never about how WE can do things, it's about how everyone ELSE needs to help us.
I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of that machine and the creatures telling us that we 'need' help. No. Not even 10 years ago, Maine was doing fine without any 'help' from ivory tower residents, and Maine does not "need" immigrants because of "the aging population". Maine has always had "an aging population".
What Maine needs is a younger population that does not over value themselves, and people "from away" to stop trying to change it to be like where they came from. I love the traditional Maine mindset. If I wanted something more 'worldly' and flashy, I would have moved elsewhere. I have talked to so many who moved here from other New England states, and they say 'I love Maine. It's so relaxing. I don't feel as stressed out as I did in (their home state)". Great! Then STOP TRYING TO CHANGE IT!
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