Quote:
Originally Posted by underscore
Any job that can be done in another country for 1/10 the wage has already moved there lol. Nobody is bringing in TFWs for jobs they could be doing in their home country for a fraction of the cost.
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You are not getting the complete picture.
Without cheap labors, everything would become more expensive, and at a time where we are trying to fight inflation, cheap labor immigrants are a necessary evil. Worse, the economy might stagnate without it.
Think it this way, a Mexican labor in construction can be had for about 20 bucks an hour. Sure they won't know much, but it's $20 for an hour of labor.
That same dude who knows little about construction, if you are hiring a Canadian dude, it's easily 30+, and I'm going as far as saying it's gonna be hard to find one at 30, I'd put it closer to 40 today.
Now, that's an increase of 50-100% in labor cost, which is about roughly 30% of total cost in construction. If I'm building a house, and the building cost is 350/sqft using migrant workers. By using 0 migrant worker, my building cost is now $450/sqft.
Now, if the market-going price is $1000, take 350+another 500 for land, I'm making a modest 15% profit... not great, but it's ok. But if that cost now goes to 450, it means that as a developer, I only make 5% and I need to deal with everything from financing, permit, project management... etc etc... why do I bother when just leaving money in bank would get me 5%+?
Too many people take things for granted. "Oh, if it wasn't for the workers, business wouldn't exist". True... but think it another way, if it wasn't the businesses, where do jobs come from? There's a reason why we give out billions of dollars as incentives to corporations for them to setup their business here.
It's not always "the business can afford it." The problem is when business can't afford it, wtf do we do about all the people who are looking for job?
Bringing migrant workers is a way to balance things out and not just "keeping giant corporation profitable." You are giving migrant workers too little credit.