Another 10% drop in Mexican immigration to US
We have reported before about the real recession behind the official numbers in the underground or “black” economy. These are the numbers that the government does not and cannot disclose, but the declines there are equally as bad. A 2005 Wall Street Journal article estimates the underground economy at around $970 billion which equates to about 9% of the real economy. The underground economy indicators show a decline in cash transactions possibly a more real measure of the health of an economy and migrant desirability of US employment
Reverse migration (people leaving the US to go home) is on the rise. The dream may be over in a depressed economy. The 2008 National Statistics and Geography Institute report told us that Mexican emigration has fallen by 42 per cent during the last two years. The study appears to confirm that emigration to the US has become less appealing amid an economic downturn and a increasing raids against illegal migrants. The survey, which was carried out via household surveys, includes all Mexicans who left the country, and did not break down legal and illegal migration.
There have been other indications that Mexican emigration, which is still mainly to the US, has been falling dramatically. The US Border Patrol has reported a 39 per cent drop in the capture of migrants trying to cross the frontier illegally since 2005. Money sent home by Mexican emigrants has also fallen. Remittances fell 12 per cent to $1.9bn in August, the biggest drop since record-keeping began 12 years ago, according to the Mexican central bank. Mexican authorities say the country may also see a surge of returning migrants as the economy worsens in the US. Mexico City’s municipal government has predicted that up to 30,000 more immigrants than usual will return from the US over the next few months.
The 2009 version of the same report reveals the reverse migration trend is continuing. The number of Mexicans leaving the country in the third quarter of 2009 dropped another nearly 10 percent from the same period last year. This is a 40 percent drop compared to 2007. According this latest National Statistics and Geography Institute (INEGI) report some 142,052 Mexicans emigrated in the third quarter of this year. That’s down from 155,090 last year and 234,146 the year before. While the US remains in the doldrums it seems many Mexicans think there opportunities remain better at home then in th US
In the US, some 7.2 million jobs have been lost since December 2007. The foreign-born population has been the hardest hit. From 1994 to 2007, employment among immigrants was higher than that of natives, reaching 66 percent in 2007 compared to 63 percent for natives. But from the start of the recession through the first half of 2009, unemployment among immigrants rose to 9.2 percent (from a low of 3.4 percent), according to a Migration Policy Institute report, “Tied to the Business Cycle: How Immigrants Fare in Good and Bad Economic Times,” released in November. The native unemployment rate stood at 8.3 percent.
In certain sectors such as construction, which depends heavily on Mexican labor, the unemployment rate grew to as much as 17 percent in the first half of 2009.
Households headed by immigrants faced higher poverty rates. The real median income in 2008 was 5.3 percent lower than the previous year, and poverty rates grew by more than a percentage point to 17.8 percent.
Such deterrents have shrunk the balance of migrants – the numbers of those returning versus those leaving – in Mexico. The new INEGI figures show that while the balance stood at “negative 33,974″ in the third quarter of 2009 – meaning that there were 33,974 more Mexicans that left Mexico than returned to the country in that time frame. It was at negative 72,038 in 2008 and negative 151,165 in 2007.
Still, despite analyst predictions that Mexico would face an influx of nationals returning home from the US, stretching government resources, INEGI figures show that the numbers of those returning during the third quarter of this year are only up slightly, at 108,078 in the third quarter of the year, compared to 83,052 in the same period last year and 82,981 in 2007. “There is still nor evidence of a massive return of migrants to the national territory,” INEGI said in its release.
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