For Illegal Immigrants, Housing Slump Takes Toll / NYT

good story that explains how big the impact of the illegal immigrants on the economy and the job market was during the boom time and how is now masking the real impact of the slump. click on the headline to read the full story.

guter bericht über den einfluß der illegalen einwandere in den usa während der boomzeit und wie der wahre effekt der immokrise auf die wirtschaft jetzt zum teil berschleiert wird. bitte auf die überschrift für die ganze geschichte klicken.

From Fresno to Sacramento, big tangles of wire and PVC pipes clutter vacant lots in silent subdivisions, waiting for houses to be built — some day. Dozens of “For Sale” signs already dot the lawns across new residential communities. And right next to the ubiquitous billboards from builders are fresh signs offering homeowners help to avoid foreclosure.

But another set of losers is less visible: the immigrant workers, mostly illegal, who rode the construction boom while it lasted and now find jobs on building sites few and far between.

Offering more than $10 an hour as well as new skills and a shot at upward mobility, construction provided many illegal immigrants the best job they ever had, a step up from the backbreaking work reserved for those toiling without legal authorization, which in the Central Valley mostly meant pruning and picking in fruit and vegetable fields.

The growing presence of illegal immigrants in home building, mostly working for small labor contractors, might help explain why government statistics have recorded only a small decline in construction employment, despite the collapse in residential investment....

größer/bigger http://tinyurl.com/2qs569

Illegal immigrants played a big if quiet part on the supply side of America’s housing boom. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization in Washington, immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries account for about one in five construction workers. Those who arrived since 2000 — who are likely to be unlawfully in the United States because they had virtually no way of immigrating legally — account for an estimated 7 percent of the construction work force.

They were mostly pulled in by the building frenzy of the first half of the decade. According to the analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center, based on census data, Hispanic immigrants took 60 percent of the million new construction jobs created from 2004 to 2006. Those recently arrived took nearly half......

The nation’s great housing bust has not shown up so far in official employment data. According to the Labor Department, employment in residential construction has declined by only 28,000 jobs — or some 3 percent — since its peak last fall.

The statistics seem to belie the debacle that has overwhelmed home building. In February, there were 15 percent fewer homes under construction and 27 percent fewer homes started than in the corresponding month of 2006. In California, 42 percent fewer building permits for new residential units were issued in February than a year earlier.

>and on the other hand "California Notices of Default Soar"

thanks to http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/.

more on the foreclosure topic

from calculated risk http://tinyurl.com/35naq9

and tim http://tinyurl.com/2peljr