Low-Skilled Workers Make The Labor Market More Efficient

Another Reason Low-Skilled Mexican Workers Are Good For The Economy
FILE - In this Friday, July 27, 2012 file photo, workers harvest wild blueberries at the Ridgeberry Farm in Appleton, Maine. Maine's wild blueberry growers for the most part escaped widespread damage from a harmful new fruit fly during the 2013 summer harvest, resulting in what is expected to be an above-average crop. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
FILE - In this Friday, July 27, 2012 file photo, workers harvest wild blueberries at the Ridgeberry Farm in Appleton, Maine. Maine's wild blueberry growers for the most part escaped widespread damage from a harmful new fruit fly during the 2013 summer harvest, resulting in what is expected to be an above-average crop. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

A recent NBER study has found that low-skilled Mexican immigrants are more responsive to changes in employment, and are quick to relocate when there is a period of high unemployment in the area they live in.

This is good for an economy that often has a surprising number of jobs that go unfilled.

The authors, Brian Cadena of the University of Colorado- Boulder and Brian Kovak from Carnegie Mellon University found that between 2006 to 2010, in towns where the Great Recession had caused unemployment of 10%, the population of Mexican immigrants dropped by 7.6%. In contrast, the population of low-skilled native workers did not decline at all, while that of high-skilled workers declined by 5.3%.

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