Business owners are increasingly utilizing foreign-born migrant labor to meet their working needs as sky-high inflation pushes up the costs of business, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The U.S. had a net gain of 3.3 million migrants in 2023, far higher than the average of around 900,000 throughout the 2010s, according to the WSJ. The dependence and availability of cheap foreign labor is leading many business owners to tap into the pool of migrant workers instead of investing in their operations through mechanization, while also propping up companies that would typically have engaged in restructuring due to low profitability. (RELATED: High Rent Prices Are Crushing Americans — And They Could Be Here To Stay, Experts Say)
“Once industry is organized in a certain way and the structure encourages employers to recruit migrants, it can be very hard to turn back,” Martin Ruhs, professor of migration studies in Florence, Italy, told the WSJ. “In some cases, policymakers should ask, does it make sense?”
