This is the title of an article I read back in May with an interesting take on economic predictions.
For about a decade, researchers in Arizona have used the figures for border patrol apprehensions of illegal immigrants at the border as one of their tools for predicting the economy. About 12 months after the apprehensions go down, the economy experiences a slow down or recession.
The idea is that when the US economy slows, undocumented workers here are often the first ones to feel any slow down in hiring or increase in layoffs. They get word back to Mexico, which leads workers there to put off the danger and expense of crossing until the job market picks up. Increased border patrolling plays a role in this, since the harder it is to cross over, the better the prospects for work have to be to make it worth the risk.
Apprehensions began going down at the end of 2005, and the trend continued. By the spring of 2006, the indication was that the economy would slow down in 2007.
Smart observation. It probably explains why unemployment rate hasn’t risen in spite of recession in homebuilding industry. Being completely at the mercy of true market forces, illegal labor acts as the canary in the coal mine. A slightly more indirect statistic would be the number of legal immigrants. That tends to go down when economy slows down.
Smart observation. It probably explains why unemployment rate hasn’t risen in spite of recession in homebuilding industry. Being completely at the mercy of true market forces, illegal labor acts as the canary in the coal mine. A slightly more indirect statistic would be the number of legal immigrants. That tends to go down when economy slows down.
Smart observation. It probably explains why unemployment rate hasn’t risen in spite of recession in homebuilding industry. Being completely at the mercy of true market forces, illegal labor acts as the canary in the coal mine. A slightly more indirect statistic would be the number of legal immigrants. That tends to go down when economy slows down.
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