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    Tech Makes an Economic Case for Skilled Immigrants. Will Trump Bite?

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    Silicon Valley hopes that tech giants like Elon Musk could help to push the incoming Trump administration toward offering more visas to highly skilled foreign workers.Aaron Levie, the chief executive of the cloud software company Box, said he was more hopeful than he had been at any point in the past 15 years that America could soon accept more highly educated immigrants — the sort of skilled foreigners he hires as software engineers.Mr. Levie recently posted on X that America’s immigration policies for high-skilled workers are “not responsive to the market,” and that Elon Musk, with his position in president-elect Donald J. Trump’s orbit, could fix them.“I agree,” Mr. Musk replied. The thread quickly filled with other tech workers and executives sharing stories of trying to get visas for themselves and their employees.Welcoming more high-skilled immigrants is “one of the highest leverage — maybe the highest leverage — thing you could do to make sure that America stays at the forefront,” Mr. Levie said in an interview.The technology industry considers that argument about economic competitiveness as one that could persuade Mr. Trump to allow increased levels of immigration for highly skilled workers. But the industry’s optimism clashes with past experience: The president-elect did not expand skill-based legal immigration during his first term in office. Instead, his immigration officials curbed visa programs for educated workers by overseeing them more stringently.And while some in Silicon Valley and corporate America are hoping that this time will be different, Washington policy analysts, lawyers and visa holders themselves are less certain.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Backs a Longshoremen’s Union That Supported Him

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    President-elect Donald J. Trump is supporting the International Longshoremen’s Association, which could strike soon if it doesn’t reach a deal on automation with employers.Leaders of some labor unions tried to establish good relations with Donald J. Trump before the election — and for one of them, that effort may already be paying off.President-elect Trump lent his support on Thursday to the International Longshoremen’s Association, which represents dockworkers on the East and Gulf Coasts. Contract negotiations between the union and employers have broken down over the use of port machinery that can move cargo without human involvement. The I.L.A. opposes it, believing it reduces jobs, but the employers, mainly large shipping companies, have said that the equipment moves goods more cheaply and efficiently.Writing on Truth Social, Mr. Trump said on Thursday that he had met with I.L.A. leaders and that he sympathized with the union’s fears.“I’ve studied automation, and know just about everything there is to know about it,” he said. “The amount of money saved is nowhere near the distress, hurt, and harm it causes for American Workers, in this case, our Longshoremen.”The union suspended a short strike in October after securing a large wage increase, and agreed to keep negotiating with port operators until Jan. 15 on other parts of the contract, including provisions on how much automated machinery can be used.Mr. Trump won a second presidential term with the support of many union members, and he has vowed to protect American workers. And while it is unclear how much he will do to help the labor movement broadly, his backing of the I.L.A. suggests he could strengthen the hand of unions that have courted him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 138 Shares149 Views

    in Economy

    U.S. Data Agency Blames Old Tech and Other Failures for Missteps

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    The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks jobs and inflation, issued a report on what caused embarrassing episodes in which data was released improperly.Outdated technology, inadequate funding and a failure to follow established procedures contributed to embarrassing missteps at the Bureau of Labor Statistics this year, a panel that examined the episodes said on Tuesday.Julie Su, the acting labor secretary, formed the 11-member group in September after a botched data release allowed some investors to see potentially market-moving employment data before the public. That followed two other episodes: one in February, in which an agency employee provided methodological information to finance industry “super users”; and another, in May, in which inflation data was inadvertently posted to the agency’s website half an hour before its scheduled release.The panel was chaired by a former Labor Department official and consisted mostly of current officials from the department and other federal agencies. It also included two members of the public. Ms. Su gave the group 60 days to “identify causes of and fixes to the inaccurate release of data” and report back.The panel found that the three episodes were “unique and unrelated,” and noted that none of them related to the quality or accuracy of the agency’s data. But it argued that even the perception that the agency was poorly run, or that favored groups had early access to information, threatened to erode public trust in government data.“The smallest glitch can undermine months of high-quality data work in a moment,” the panel wrote in its report.Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, echoed that message in a call with reporters on Tuesday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    in Economy

    November Jobs Report Shows Gain of 227,000; Unemployment Rises

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    Hiring bounced back after disruptions from storms and a major strike.Job creation bounced back in November after disruptions from storms and a major strike, reinforcing a picture of modest employment expansion over the past several months.The U.S. economy added 227,000 jobs, seasonally adjusted, the Labor Department reported on Friday. With upward revisions to September and October figures, the three-month average gain is 173,000, slightly higher than the average over the six months before that.The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2 percent, from 4.1 percent in October, as fewer people were able to find work. But for those who had jobs, wages jumped more than expected and were 4 percent higher than they were a year earlier.Unemployment rate More

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    For Those in Need of a Job, Landing One Might Still Be a Challenge

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    The unemployment rate, at 4.1 percent in October, remains low by historical standards. But under the surface, there are signs that it can be difficult to land a job.The share of unemployed workers finding jobs has been falling, and the average duration of unemployment has been rising — two indications of mounting strain for job seekers.The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a steep drop in the job-finding rate in October, extending previous months’ declines. That points to a potentially challenging dynamic: Layoffs remain relatively low, but people who lose their jobs could be struggling to find new ones.The average number of weeks of unemployment also hit a two-and-a-half-year high in October, at 22.9 weeks, up from another recent high of 22.6 weeks in September. In the past few months, more people have been falling into the category of long-term unemployment, typically defined as being out of work for more than six months.A recent downturn in open roles could have been contributing to the strain on job seekers, keeping many unemployed for longer. Available positions in September tumbled to 7.4 million, resembling prepandemic levels.Job openings did tick up in October, surpassing expectations, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released this week. And in a survey conducted last month by the Conference Board, roughly 15 percent of consumers said jobs were hard to get, down from the almost 18 percent who said the same in October, hinting at easing conditions. More

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    Biden Administration Moves to End a Minimum Wage Waiver for Disabled Workers

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    A plan by the Biden administration would phase out a provision that allows employers to pay workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage.The Biden administration on Tuesday moved to end a program that has for decades allowed companies to pay workers with disabilities less than the minimum wage.The statute, enacted as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, has let employers obtain certificates from the Labor Department that authorize them to pay workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage, currently $7.25 an hour. The department began a “comprehensive review” of the program last year, and on Tuesday it proposed a rule that would bar new certificates and phase out current ones over three years.“This proposal would help ensure that workers with disabilities have access to equal employment opportunities, while reinforcing our fundamental belief that all workers deserve fair compensation for their contribution,” Taryn Williams, assistant secretary of labor for disability employment policy, said on a call with reporters.As of May, about 800 employers held certificates allowing them to pay workers less than minimum wage, affecting roughly 40,000 workers, said Kristin Garcia, deputy administrator of the Labor Department’s wage and hour division.Those figures reflect a steep decline in employers’ reliance on the program in recent years: The number of workers with disabilities earning less than the minimum wage dropped to 122,000 in 2019 from 296,000 in 2010, according to a report published last year from the Government Accountability Office.Since 2019, more than half of workers employed under this program earned less than $3.50 an hour, according to the report.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Picks Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer for Labor Secretary

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    Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a first-term Republican representative from Oregon who narrowly lost her House seat this month, was chosen on Friday to serve as labor secretary in the coming Trump administration.“Lori has worked tirelessly with both business and labor to build America’s work force, and support the hardworking men and women of America,” President-elect Donald J. Trump said in a statement.A moderate from a swing district that includes parts of Portland, Ms. Chavez-DeRemer, 56, is not a major figure in American labor politics. But she was one of only a few House Republicans to support major pro-union legislation, and she split her district’s union endorsements with her Democratic opponent, Janelle Bynum, earning nods from ironworkers, firefighters and local Teamsters.When the House speaker, Mike Johnson, spoke at a Chavez-DeRemer rally in October, he said, “She’s got more labor union endorsements than any Republican I’ve ever seen in my life.”Labor leaders criticized Mr. Trump’s policies during his first term as president, and at one point in the race this year, he praised Elon Musk for a willingness to fire workers who go on strike. But Mr. Trump also proposed ending taxes on tips and overtime, and many rank-and-file union members embraced his pro-tariffs economic agenda.After Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s defeat this month, the president of the Teamsters, Sean O’Brien, urged Mr. Trump to consider her for the labor secretary role, Politico reported. On Friday, Mr. O’Brien praised her selection, posting a photograph on X of himself standing with Mr. Trump and Ms. Chavez-DeRemer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Why Trump Allies Say Immigration Hurts American Workers

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    JD Vance and others on the “new right” say limiting immigration will raise wages and give jobs to sidelined Americans. Many studies suggest otherwise.As President-elect Donald J. Trump’s second administration takes shape, his plans for a signature campaign promise are becoming clear: mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, including new detention centers, workplace raids and possibly the mobilization of the military to aid in expulsions.Most economists are skeptical that this project will improve opportunities for working-class Americans. Mr. Trump and his allies don’t typically argue for purging undocumented immigrants on economic grounds; the case is more often about crimes committed by migrants, or simply a need to enforce the law.But there is an intellectual movement behind immigration restriction that seeks to reshape the relationship between employers and their sources of labor. According to this rising conservative faction, most closely identified with Vice President-elect JD Vance, cutting off the supply of vulnerable foreigners will force employers to seek out U.S.-born workers.“We cannot have an entire American business community that is giving up on American workers and then importing millions of illegal laborers,” Mr. Vance said in an interview with The New York Times in October, adding, “It’s one of the biggest reasons why we have millions of people who’ve dropped out of the labor force.”Mr. Vance is correct that the share of men in their prime working years who are in the labor force — that is, either working or looking for work — has declined in recent decades, sliding during recessions and never totally recovering. (Women in that age group, 25 to 54 years old, are working at the highest levels on record.)It seems like a simple equation: When fewer workers are available, employers have to try harder to compete for them. Certainly that dynamic played a role in the swift wage growth early in the pandemic, when people willing to do in-person jobs — waiters or nurses, for example — were in especially short supply.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More