TY - JOUR
T1 - Immigration Enforcement and the Hiring of Low-Skilled Labor
AU - Arenas Arroyo, Esther
AU - Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina
AU - Schmidpeter, Bernhard
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - We examine how firms adjust their labor demand to immigration policy changes resulting from intensified interior immigration enforcement. Using the temporal and geographic variation in the adoption of such policies as a source of identification, we find that firms boost their demand for low-skilled foreign-born labor under the H-2B visa program as enforcement intensifies. Furthermore, firms' increased demand for guest workers is inversely related to natives' employment in occupations where most H-2B workers are hired; however, it does not seem to alter natives' wages or work hours, nor does it seem to redistribute native labor away from those occupations.
AB - We examine how firms adjust their labor demand to immigration policy changes resulting from intensified interior immigration enforcement. Using the temporal and geographic variation in the adoption of such policies as a source of identification, we find that firms boost their demand for low-skilled foreign-born labor under the H-2B visa program as enforcement intensifies. Furthermore, firms' increased demand for guest workers is inversely related to natives' employment in occupations where most H-2B workers are hired; however, it does not seem to alter natives' wages or work hours, nor does it seem to redistribute native labor away from those occupations.
UR - https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pandp.20211115&ArticleSearch%5Bwithin%5D%5Barticletitle%5D=1&ArticleSearch%5Bwithin%5D%5Barticleabstract%5D=1&ArticleSearch%5Bwithin%5D%5Bauthorlast%5D=1&ArticleSearch%5Bq%5D=arenas&JelClass%5Bvalue%5D=0
U2 - 10.1257/pandp.20211115
DO - 10.1257/pandp.20211115
M3 - Journal article
SN - 2574-0776
VL - 111
JO - AEA Papers and Proceedings
JF - AEA Papers and Proceedings
ER -