I was thinking about this the other day in the context of the boardwalk town that I vacation in sometimes. There are a lot of college student aged workers who come from Europe for the summer and work in every service industry job imaginable in town. There are agencies that find these European workers and help them find jobs and housing.
It makes me wonder why there aren't more American young adults taking these jobs. I think it would be great fun to live at the beach for the summer. Maybe the wages are too low, or American kids are focused on internships? Or maybe the European workers are better employees? I don't know.
I live in a touristy town that does this with J1 workers. I'll tell you why: The jobs pay $7.25/hour.
The J1s are then packed like sardines into houses where they pay rent by the week. Why by the week? To remind them they're expendable and can be deported at a moment's notice by the restaurant/hotel/amusement park/etc. they work at. The worst I've heard is 16 people living in a 3-bedroom, 1 bathroom house.
The J1s themselves are typically great people. A lot of them do everything they can to stay in the area via Green Cards or whatever. Business that treat their J1s like shit are usually blacklisted by locals, too. We'll actively tell tourists not to give those businesses any business and why.
People are willing to take a discount on their wages and quality of life for the intangible benefit of ‘the experience of living and working abroad for a summer’.
For non-native English speakers it also has the advantage of providing a free total immersion language course as well. People pay for opportunities like that.
So yes, an Italian 19 year old is willing to work for less money for the chance to work in a water park for a summer, improving their English and boosting their resume, and if it gives them enough money to be able to fund a couple of weekend trips to New York or DC so much the better. It’s a life experience and a working vacation.
That local 19 year olds are not seeing the same advantages to that sort of work isn’t surprising.
>That local 19 year olds are not seeing the same advantages to that sort of work isn’t surprising.
Which should be pretty revolting for them if that's the case. Instead of American 19 year olds making some summer money at the waterpark to buy their first car, they get moved aside by disposable foreign workers, so then they need to stay supported by their parents for longer till they can get a "proper" job.
And I'm European not American, but I see the same issue here. Getting minimum wage jobs in the hospitality/service sector is super competitive now due to pressure from migrant workers who will accept anything. These are jobs that used to be done by teenagers in the past for summer money but not anymore.
Employers everywhere being able allowed to min/max wages against the most desperate labor on the planet should be banned.
And then governments have the audacity to complain about people not having kids anymore. Well no shit, my dad and his peers had summer jobs since he was 14 because there were no migrant workers to replace them, and after finishing high school he already had a job in the factory with housing benefits, he was already making enough money to have a family and 2 kids, not one.
The result for the local American 19 year olds is that ticket prices at their local water park are kept low enough that they can afford to go there to cool off and be handed towels by foreign teenagers.
If the government cut off the seasonal work visas, tourist destination hospitality businesses would have to increase prices, some would go out of business, and American tourists’ quality of life would be lower.
>The result for the local American 19 year olds is that ticket prices at their local water park are kept low enough that they can afford to go there to cool off and be handed towels by foreign teenagers.
And where are 19 year old Americans getting money for water parks if they don't have jobs? Still having hobbies funded by your parents at 19 isn't really a societal win.
You say 30-50 years ago they couldn't afford that because labor costs were too high? Maybe they had jobs to pay those higher costs?
This is a lump of labor fallacy.
By finding a ready source of people willing to staff the water park at a lower price, more ‘water park amenity’ is available at a lower price.
This frees up the labor of local teenagers who can now be employed in other roles, producing other useful things for society, like… I don’t know what teenagers do nowadays. Provide market-clearing services on Kalshi by placing bad bets? Upload short form video to TikTok to enable ad buyers to find customers?
>By finding a ready source of people willing to staff the water park at a lower price, more ‘water park amenity’ is available at a lower price.
Or same prices but higher margins for the owner.
Which leads to more water parks existing.
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Same thing with au pairs and childcare work: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/09/683831264/au-pair-sponsor-age.... It’s basically below minimum wage.
Exactly. Au pairs are super common in Europe too, I even know of American ones.
The appeal for foreigners is living temporarily in Germany, Switzerland, etc.
It's an exchange: the host offers a roof, pays next to nothing for a live-in nanny, etc.
It's tourism + work.
I don't think anyone would do this as a career, and locals just do it in another country.
I believe there is an age-out age for being an au-pair, 26 I think, so it isn't possible to make a career out of it.
I'm talking about the "the host offers a roof, pays next to nothing for a live-in nanny" arrangement, which locals don't do.
Interestingly the 26 refers to the USA. But a similar career would be legally possible inside the USA (not under the program) but not in EU, due to heavy labour regulations.
If this is like what I saw in Maine coastal tourist towns this summer I suspect its popular with Europeans because the $15.10/hour local wage is attractive. But more so it's because you get to spend time a few months in a beautiful location surrounded by other attractive young people. Party scene is probably great.
I suspect you're correct on that front, too. I have family in an area that has been bringing in European teens to work seasonal tourist-facing jobs for probably(?) decades now. I can't speak to how they are treated outside my view, but anecdotally, they seem to really enjoy the opportunity. They get their little euro-crew together and basically have a College experience.
Locals like them, too - they're charming, generally well-behaved, polite, and it doesn't hurt that they don't have to pay them very much. I like to think the cultural exchange between the Europeans and the otherwise isolated locals is fantastic for broadening horizons, also.
Naturally, there’s an old This American Life episode about this which focuses on young international people who work summer at a highway rest stop.
Ep. 388
Oh, this was me 18 years ago. Worked a summer in Wyoming at a truck stop in the middle of the desert. It was kind of fun. Don't regret it a minute. My one and only trip to the US. People were warm and welcoming, if a bit wierd at times. The trip I did there with the Grayhound bus was _wild_. I think of my time there with fondness.
The right policy response would be telling the firms running these programs to get fucked if they can't successfully operate while paying staff the prevailing wage that local Americans would accept.
A nearby amusement park touted that they pay $20/hr. However it's seasonal, not year around. They raised wages because COVID-19 and current Administration policies decreased the supply of foreign college students who somehow had work authorization.
I learned this hiring practice in my home state of MN. The lake Superior North shore has resorts that hire these types of workers and pay them shit.
I agree. If the minimum wage is raised, there will be less incentives for businesses to hire cheap foreign workers.
When you say “I was thinking bout this the other day”, you weren’t thinking about this, in the sense of thinking about skilled worker immigration pathways for technology companies. What you were thinking about appears to be something entirely different - seasonal nonimmigrant unskilled labor.
There’s actually virtually nothing those two things have in common, except some unarticulated sense of grievance that in some unspecified way it would be better if Americans were doing those things.
I agree, my reply was tangential to the topic of the AP article being discussed here. I apologize for getting off topic.
And I didn't mean to give the impression that I have some grievance that these jobs aren't filled by Americans.
My curiosity was why aren't there more American kids having a working vacation in beach towns, not shame on these towns for importing labor.
And also the indentured servitude
One summer in my teens I worked as a groundskeeper at a Martha's Vineyard inn, and it _was_ a fun summer. I had a free place to stay (with a friend), plenty of free time, and little adult supervision.
Virtually all the hospitality staff there were European university students. Midway through the summer, they realized that they weren't earning enough to afford their return airfare and they threatened to strike. I don't recall how they resolved the issue, but I believe that they were netting less than minimum wage. Maybe things have changed since then, and maybe not.
The staff at Harris Teeter in Corolla NC (the outer banks) has been nearly 100% young adults from eastern European countries the last few times that I was down there.
I don't know their living situation, but I did see them both walking and riding bikes to the grocery store. It's a somewhat unique situation as the grocery store probably does 90% of their yearly business between June and August each year. I couldn't tell if they all knew each other from home or just from working together.
Do you mean that you are surprised that young Americans aren't working at the boardwalk in the USA or that young Americans are not working at the beaches in Europe?
What does this mean? Use more words please.
The s/something/other/ patterns are regular expression replaces.
He's saying you can replace 'something' for 'other' in each of those patterns.
They are (quite obviously) saying that this could be changed to British people commenting on how all of the service jobs are Poles, or Canadians commenting how they are all Indian.
… as a way to express what, though?
That American complaints of this form are not unique and therefore should be disregarded? That American complaints of this form are universal and therefore indicative of a global pattern that should be concerning?
Seems like a pre-Brexit example for Britain.
I feel like AI has ruined hn
I agree! People can't recognize regex-replace statements anymore! a forum commenting tradition that goes back decades.
HN and regular expressions are best friends.
\bai\b
Other countries import cheap labor too.
whats your point?
If you're a non-US citizen, I don't believe it's easy to just switch to a different job, which makes it difficult to just exit out of the job you have. US citizens could leave at any point for another job (or no job) if they chose, putting the staffing at the service roles at risk. Just speculating.
I just went to Asbury Park, NJ about a month ago. It was all local highschool/college kids. I go to an ice cream shop in Brooklyn by a park - all highschoolers.
I think it just depends on the location? But also yes - if I'm worth my salt, why would I take these jobs over higher paying internships? At 19 I was able to land $25/h jobs in tech. Maybe we should rethink the pay scales in terms of sustainability. Unfortunately we live in the US where short term gains are the sole motivator for most companies.
In Maine there are lots of early 20s workers that mostly seem to come from Balkan countries. I think those little tourist towns just don't have large enough populations to support the demand. Tourists probably outnumber actual locals. Places like NJ and Brooklyn though have plenty of 16-22 year olds who will work beach jobs.
I think it depends on what countries the owners have connections to. Random ice cream shop I visited in Florida a few years back was staffed by young Turkish women, my wife asked they said there on J1's. Before that we were in the Florida Keys - the local mosque was full of young Uzbek men that worked in the hotels, all on J1s.
Because you either continue paying rent for the room you're renting the rest of the year, or you risk not having digs in the fall.
For those European workers, a US wage more than pays for the rent for their vacant rent back home.
> who come from Europe for the summer and work in every service industry job imaginable in town
Do they have work visas for this, or are they abusing a travel visa? All the people I knew that did this were doing it illegally.
There is a program that allows university students to come to the US, work for a bit, and then stay for a month or so longer. It’s called work & travel. Many entertainment companies like six flags and casinos hire them. I have many friends who have done this years ago. The pay was low but they had a fun summer, travelled a bit, and came come with a new laptop or a good SLR camera. It wasn’t glamorous but a generally positive experience.
There is a "work and travel" program for students in Europe with valid visa and everything. I know lots of people who did that for a summer or two, it was an opportunity to see USA and also it was a great thing to list on their CV when getting a job back home.
because the american workers are off working on better opportunities afforded to them because the immigrants are working these service jobs.
And now that there's less of them, the jobs will be replaced by higher wage americans, which will increase inflation from the higher payroll costs.
I actually have taken that job as an American, any questions? I will say the Irish had an amazing work ethic despite being drunk half the time.
Only half?
Sleeping the other half?
some companies (Six Flags) have in the past abused the J-1 summer work travel program, and essentially trap young people in semi-remote dorms for the summer
companies do stuff like this because american young people won't tolerate it
Interesting framing. I thought that was part of the appeal. When I was in college I was actively looking for an opportunity to go to another country and do a temporary work thing where you stayed in a mountain resort and worked at the front desk all summer.
The problem is that you have to leave the country if you quit because you can't get someone to sponsor a different job, and you don't have your own transportation. The company charges you rent, for uniform, meals, and other costs... so you end up making very little and don't get treated well.
You don't get to experience much of the country because you're located in some dorm building that's not near much. So your summer ends up looking like 12 hour days standing around in the sun watching other people have fun.
A number of companies have been hit with slap-on-the-wrist fines for actually violating labor policies doing it.
Let these people make their choices about doing or not doing it. Don't try to defend them by taking the opportunity away.
I did this for a summer, worked my butt off, got back home, paid all my expenses with the paperwork and the plane tickets, bought a laptop and came back with about 500$. It was not much, but it was much more than I ever got the opportunity by that point to make.
The people I worked with treated me quite well. Everyone I met was welcoming and warm.
I did not manage to see a lot, but I did visit Yellowstone, had a couple of adventures, and overall was a positive experience for me.
A friend I was with did not manage too well and had a nervous breakdown at the thought of having to wash toilets.
But my point is, it can be a great experience and I don't buy for a second this feigned concern for "ooh, the poor kids are exploited". No, I think it's just job protectionism.
An additional complication is that people get stuck a month in realizing they've made a huge mistake and can't get out without penalty. Choices being limited is what makes it exploitable.
There's no feigned concern, this is actually a labor system that gets abused time and time again. Still happens today. These people have no advocates. A similar situation happens on cruise ships.
This is prevalent among the big ski consolidators (Vail Resorts, Alterra) year over year.
They were taking those jobs, but then the agencies decided they wanted a cut and found cheaper foreign workers, same as always
Wages are always too low if you replace Americans with cheaper foreigners.
you cant build career out of seasonal job in some random resort places across the country.
the idea is that foreigners will do the temp/seasonal low value work, while Americans were supposed to educate and upskill using federal student loans and get a high value jobs.
unfortunately American education system made it impossible, ue to stupidity.
Only China is able to do that: massively educate population and upskill and go up the value chain of manufacturing and industrialization.
I think this up-skilling sentiment misses that as a worker who thought a seasonal service job on the waterfront was a good deal, up-skilling means taking on 6 figures in debt - after which they will only have a ~1/5 chance of getting a job which compensates for the opportunity cost and debt. For many, this is actually a bad deal and growing their own seasonal business would have been a stronger career path.
if you are opening your own seasonal business, then you WANT seasonal wages suppressed. You dont want wages to go up, as this will be your cost of doing business.
Any american bitchin about low wages and competition was supposed to set up own S-Corp/LLC and hire his "competitors" and take advantage of those "low wages"
You have unrestricted work authorization, you have SBA loans and everything possible to create your own American Dream(R)
> impossible, ue to stupidity.
Due to the jobs not existing in the number required.
tech jobs are abundant but talent is not there, hence the need for h1b and such
same for microchip manufacturing (Micron and TSMC factories in US) and every other high value industry.
heck even Submarine production cannot find welders and machinists.
Just wanna say: thanks for going the opposite way of the other half of this website who's just constantly saying tech jobs are gone.
It's still incredibly hard to hire skilled devs.
> other half
More than half. Everyone is talking their book here, and the book that isn't blind to this problem belongs to the overwhelming majority.
I absolutely understand both sides, and the sentiment of some Americans who feel betrayed by their government when they see foreigners coming in, getting elite Ivy League degrees, and snatching six-seven figure jobs.
The resentment is absolutely understandable.
What I am trying to explain is that, if magically, all foreigners are expelled, H1B/OPT banned, all Indian visas canceled, this will NEVER result in Americans getting more jobs. Quite the opposite. Global Capability Centers already are offshoring everything possible outside the US, just because of trump rhetoric.
American capitalist is not stupid, the billionaires are not idiots. Why should they hire and overpay for unskilled Americans just because they happen to be born here, instead of hiring the most qualified person? Any anti-immigrant legislation will simply accelerate the offshoring, or even worse, will create competing tech giants outside the US.
It is this entitlement attitude is whats going to ruin the US tech sector and scare the talent away.
We can solve this problem with tariffs. Digital goods and services can be taxed like any other.
tariffs do not apply to services. You are completely delusional about the governments ability to tax offshoring
So hire Americans and train them. Pay them above market wages so they don't leave. Problem solved. I know at least a dozen people smart enough to write software that aren't in the tech field because the barrier to entry is high. It might not appear high to people in HCOL areas, but in the rest of the country, the barrier is quite high.
Tech people are the last ones to complain about the low pay
A lot of tech jobs are paying six to seven figures, you cant really demand employers to train and lower barriers. Why should employers lower their barrier and increase salaries even further?
Where do you get this feeling of entitelement for other people’s money ???
What else do you want at this point, maybe just plain UBI and a million to everyone just for being white american ?
What do you mean why should employers lower barriers and train people? Because they're abusing visa programs meant for 'highly skilled' labor and bring in low skill, wage suppressing labor.
false, why would they import low skill labor and then pay them six figures, when America is full of low skill burger flipping labor ?
I'm not in the US and was talking in general, but I share your sentiment.
So learn to code?
Learn anything at very deep and competitive level, instead of paying some random bootcamp to sit throught the $10 Udemy course and $20 Coursera certificate on how to write hello world
It doesn't matter if someone can build a career out of seasonal jobs, which is entirely false btw. The market will dictate how much seasonal goods and services are worth, thus setting wages and property values.
Just like farm labor: without importing foreigners, legal or otherwise, wages would go up, food prices would go up, prices, wages, and property values would normalize to market rates.
your libertarian view of economy is too naiive. There is no "free market" in the US. Everything that impacts inflation/CPI is tightly controlled by the federal government with monetary tools like credit expansion, rates, federal incentives and such.
the reason why America wants to suppress low value jobs, is because they are input to the actual output of American economy: agriculture, high value industrial goods, tech services, financial services, real estate, financial asset s and services.
These are the actual components of US GDP and American government does everything possible to keep the input to these sectors stable/low, in order to protect the profits of these industries.
Do you see how wages seasonal workers are lower priority to the profits of Vail Corporation?
Only like 50% US population has a valid passport, 40% are a paycheck away from homelessness, and potential double taxation?
https://rusticpathways.com/blog/how-many-americans-have-a-pa...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/40-of-americans-one-step-from-p...
The person you're replying to was presumably talking about a vacation town in the US. Double taxation, by the way, is only an issue if an American makes over $100,000 per year in their foreign job.