Effects of Illegal immigration on Staffing Essay Example for Free

Effects of Illegal immigration on Staffing Essay Illegal immigration is the scenario where people travel from a different country and enter another country using false documents or means that and makes it hard for the authorities to trace those who do so. The level of illegal immigrants to developing countries like the USA has been increasing tremendously in the recent past causing increased debates about their causes and effects. The most outstanding effect of illegal immigration basically touches on cost of public service and labor thus forcing several states to enact policies that may ultimately in reducing the number of public services available to the immigrants. Their number of illegal immigrant to the US has been gradually increasing until it has made it hard for the authorities to ascertain exactly their numbers or their exact residences (Yoshida, 2000). Background A lot of inconsistencies exist between affluent and poor nations both in wages and employment opportunities and this is responsible for the mass influx of residents from poorer countries to wealthier countries like the US. This has resulted in the illegal immigration from the poorer developing and less developed countries causing the problem of labor importation to the host country. This research will focus and analyze the effects of illegal immigration on the income, labor, and the process of recruitment and selection of labor on the host country like the USA. It is also important to note that, a problem is created in the country of origin of the immigrants (Scullion Collings, 2006). The size of population in most poor countries usually exceeds the rate of employment and when this is coupled with political, ethnic and religious instabilities the rate of emigration is accelerated and this results in unending problems on the host country. Staffing is the process in which an organization acquires new and qualified employees to work in order to achieve their objectives and goals. This process entails among other steps replacement, recruitment and selection. Recruitment is usually done when jobs have been analyzed according to the tasks that have been performed and then writing them to suitable job descriptions. This requires the selectors to have basic knowledge on academic qualifications, skills and abilities of those to be selected and the undesired characteristics identified. When it comes to replacement of staff very critical questions are asked to the would-be employees with the help of expert consultants. It is necessary for the experts to handle the process professionally to ascertain the suitability of the job seekers (Dale, 2003). The most important sources of recruitment that may be used for global staffing include internal promotion and introductions, used of recruitment agencies and advertising especially the use of local and the international media. The firm that seeks to recruit individuals as their employees will always try their best to discrimination by race, sex among other forms and this will help in upholding their reputation. When they do this, they always ensure that the candidate they select meet all the requirements that qualifies them to be employed for the particular job that they seek. However, in the developed countries like the USA, there are a lot of illegal immigrants and this affects the recruitment and selection process to the extent that the concerned firm or company may have its reputation tainted. They will however be following what is required of them by the legislation since a country requires all people who work to pay taxes but in this case, the illegal immigrants will be a burden to the government since they do not pay any federal tax (Haines Rosenblum, 1999) Findings and Discussions It is apparently clear that illegal immigration has both positive and negative effects to the general economy and the process of staffing. It is important to note illegal immigration affects the country of origin and the country of destination but the effects are severe on both sides. In this research we are going to consider the United States as the country of destination and Mexico as the country of origin where people emigrate from. Statistics from the Pew Hispanic Center indicate that more than 50% of illegal immigrants in the U. S. originate from Mexico and they supply low-skilled labor to farmers and employers. It is clear that no formal steps and procedures of staffing are followed by the employers who higher the immigrants (Bean Vernez1989). The effects of this illegal immigration that were identified are as follows; burdens the tax-based resources, leads to shortage of labor in the country of origin, fake document mills, tax evasion, distortion of the law of demand and supply in a capitalistic market, drags down the compensation of workers welfare and negative effects on working and middle class citizens. The other effects of illegal immigrations that generally affect the economy and workers is the fact that it makes it hard for a country to raise the minimum wages, it makes the unscrupulous employers to pay alien in cash, increase in crime, overpopulation of the host nation, remittance of money to their country of origin, lack of government reimbursement and mortgage and loan fraud (Bean Vernez1989). It is however important to state that illegal immigration has some positive effects to the economy and includes; provision of cheap labor making harvesting in agriculture relatively cheap, increase of cash flow to retail business, increase in profits of auto insurers, creates a market pool for local foods produced, they purchase real estate, some of them may open bank accounts may make the bankers earn some revenue. Immigrants may also spur economic growth and provides better lifestyles to those enter the country illegally. It is noticeable therefore that illegal immigration has both negative and positive effects (Yoshida, 2000). This raises a very fundamental question whether those found as criminals for being in a country illegally with no valid documents should be judged considering the difficult times caused by the pressures of unemployment, lack of homes, poverty, disillusion, lack of education and low-paying jobs in their country of origin (Daugherty Kammeyer, 1995). As initially stated, illegal immigration causes shortage of labor in their home country because they prefer going to the developed countries. This will ultimately affect the economic growth of the country negatively because there is no labor force to drive the economy. Lack of labor will force the staffing agencies of those countries to lower the minimum job requirements so that they can be able to get the required employees to work for them. This lowers the credibility of the recruitment agencies and the human resource managers who are involved in global staffing. This may make a country to have poorly qualified staffs that do shoddy work and this will lead to poor performance of the economy and ultimate increase in poverty. Illegal immigration promotes brain drain; a situation where the best knowledgeable staff and educated move to other developed countries to look for ‘greener pastures’ for the careers. This will therefore affects the process of recruitment and selection in a negative way (Haines Rosenblum, 1999) Illegal immigration also has a direct effect on the tax-based resources due to the burden exerted by the illegal immigrant. In the United States, all people who work there are taxed by the federal government. Such money obtained as taxed are later used to improve other public facilities among them hospitals, schools among others. However, the government does not have clear-cut measures to ensure that those being treated in such hospitals or using other facilities are the true citizens. This will therefore lead to exerting too much pressure on the resources and may ultimately lead to provision of poor quality services to the genuine citizens. This may have a negative impact of on the labor productivity and the morale of the workers. When this happens, the work done by the citizens may not be well done basically because their esteem has been undermined. This will later make staffing encounter a lot of difficulties in trying to identify the best employees to be promoted since this is always done on the basis of customer performance. The affected organizations or firms may have to use other terms and methods to carry out various staffing processes and this will obviously taint the reputation of the recruitment agency since staffing ethics may not have been properly followed (Daugherty Kammeyer, 1995). This clearly indicates that illegal immigration by straining the resources has a direct impact on the performance of worker. It is clear that illegal immigration leads to an influx of workers to the country of destination like the United States. This will lead to a greater supply of jobs in the market more than it can be absorbed or taken in by the recruitment agencies who work on behalf of companies who are in need of employees. This will lead to the distortion of the law of demand and supply for labor in the market. This may happen in two ways: the first scenario is a situation where the immigrants provide cheap labor for whoever needs it. It is obviously certain that some firms and companies may lay off the workers in preference of the cheap labor in the market. By doing so, they will not have followed any ethics that entails the staffing procedures. The act of dismissing qualified workers with preference of employing those with lower qualifications does not entail any staffing ethics. This shows therefore how illegal immigration may negatively affect the process of recruitment and selection (LeMay, 2007). The other way in which the law of supply and supply is distorted happens especially when more qualified workers immigrate illegally to a country. This will force companies or firms to lay off its workers in preference of the more qualified workers. This automatically makes the companies to lower the minimum wage so as to indirectly discourage workers and some will later resign thus creating opportunities for the cheap labor. When they resign, employment opportunities are created and the human resource managers will rush for the cheap labor. When they do so, they staffers and recruitment agencies may not necessarily follow the correct staffing or recruitment procedures and in the long run, may negatively affect the reputation of global human resource and the entire process of staffing. This indicates that illegal immigration is a vice that must be avoided and checked at all cost (Adler Gielen, 2003). The United States has registered an increased crime in the border between it and Mexico due to a lot of immigrant who enter the two neighboring states. In most of those who enter illegally believe that New Mexico is part of Mexico itself and some even engage in cross-border crime and drug-trafficking as they try to enter the United States. Any crime and a rise of the same will obviously affect adversely the productivity of the citizens who have previously been enjoying the serenity of the working environment. It is important to note that the whole process of staffing is not done over-night. Some processes like promotion and selection may require the monitoring of the employee performance over a certain period of time. It may therefore happen that the period to review the employee performance was when there was rampant crime within the place of work or within the vicinity. The performance the employee at that time will obviously be poor and should any of the process of staffing be mandatory then the rules and regulation of such a process may not have to be necessarily followed. This therefore directly points out that the process of staffing is affected by illegal immigration due to the creation of crime (Haines Rosenblum, 1999). The existence of illegal immigrants in an economy makes it hard for the U. S government to raise the minimum wage required of any worker. It has been noted that the illegal immigrants on most occasions engage in menial jobs like maids and nannies where most Americans are not ready to offer their services. A further complicated scenario is when they work in industries and paid cheaply payment for the services rendered. In the event that the genuine residents of the United States demand any increase in their minimum wage, it would be rhetoric to do so because some cheap labor is available within the same market. Since this is part of the staffing process, such happenings may put staffers in a tight spot because those who would want to increase their revenue earnings will not at any time do so. They will therefore have failed to perform their duties of genuine staffing procedures and this may encourage development of bogus recruitment agencies that may not really care about the ethics of staffing. This will therefore affect the process of staffing negatively and this may further affect the performance of workers and a further effect on the entire human resource (Dale, 2003). Illegal immigration may lead to emergence of unscrupulous employers who may not pay them well. Since the immigrants are consciously aware of their crime of being illegally in the country, they virtually have no voice to press for compensation of damages due to injuries met at work. This is because of the fear that they may be traced, tracked and taken back to their country of origin. The workers are therefore left to perish with their own perils since their employers only want to profit themselves out of cheap labor. The workers in this case are not able to claim any compensation that may arise due to the tasks or work that they do. When such things happen, it is not usually part of staffing or human resource to deny the workers what is genuinely theirs and this may greatly affect the reputation of the staffing companies who may have been involved in the process of selection of the workers in question. This may further affect the compensation of other workers and the eventual work performance (LeMay, 2007). It is important to note that, workers are entitled to join workers and trade unions which may in turn help them in solving problems or issues that arise as it concerns their work. However, it is necessary to understand that workers are able to join such unions when they earn a certain minimum wage which may not be practically possible owing the fact that the illegal immigrants are in abundance and law of demand dictates that they be paid less so that the entire pool of workers may be absorbed. This therefore raises a problem of lack of enough voice to articulate for their rights and this affects even the genuine residents of a country. This is because their will be a seemingly large number of workers but when it comes to those who are dully represented a problem arises. This will therefore be negatively affecting the performance of the genuine immigrants and may influence the way their employers handle them. Any friction that may arise between the employer and employee may affect the work performance and any handling that does not favor the welfare of the worker will be unethical and against the basic expectations from a human resource manager. This will ultimately affect the process of staffing on one way or another (OECD, 2000). Illegal immigrants have their own problems in their home country and there is a possibility that they may transfer such problems to the host country. Such problems may include contagious diseases, overpopulation leading to traffic jam and infection of the genuine residents of a country. This will affect the productivity of workers and this may force the human resource managers to hire other workers to replace those who have fallen sick from infection. As it is usual, the process of recruitment and selection is always carried out after stipulated period of time by the human resource managers and not any arbitrary time. It therefore means that the affected company may be forced to re-adjust their schedule so as to replace the sick employees. it is apparently clear that during such time, the companies are desperately in need of quick labor force to replace the on that is missing (Adler Gielen, 2003). As they do this, it would be absurd to think that the process of recruitment and selection is properly followed and this affects the overall process of staffing. The negative effects of illegal immigration can not really be exhaustibly discussed. The other effect includes emergence of individuals who undertake the crime of providing illegal document (visas) to the illegal immigrants. Such people may end up providing documents to illegal immigrants who end up being terrorists who carry out attacks to the harmless citizens. Such attacks like that of 9/11 were carried by illegal immigrants and this has greatly affected the job market in different ways. First is the fact that it has led to the victimization of people of a particular race or origin. Such people may be subjected to unnecessary scrutiny by the authorities thus discouraging them from searching for jobs in the U. S market (Seltser, et al 1998). This may be an additional task to the recruitment agencies that carry out recruitment and selection of employees and may not be part of what they are supposed to do. This will ultimately affect the quality of staffing processes undertaken by global human resource managers who may be dictated to follow recruitment procedures that does not correlate with the staffing ethics. It therefore links illegal immigration, terrorism and staffing (Djajic, 2001). The second effect of terrorism linked to illegal immigration is that, the nation may end up losing personnel and expatriates needed to drive the economy. This usually happens when the country become too obsessed in fighting terrorism. People may also flee from a country for fear of further terrorist attacks and this will reduce the number of qualified employees that are needed. This may force the global human resource managers to lower the qualifications of the needed job so as to acquire the necessary people required to run the economy. This will ultimately distort the common professional techniques of carrying out interviewing and appraising of candidates which is essential for any recruitment process. It will render it hard to get the best people with the correct mental capabilities, motivation and prospective potentials. The other problem that arises due to illegal immigration is tax evasion and loan and mortgage default. This is because the immigrants do not have identification documents that may help in tracing them and eventual lose the money and also tax. The effect does not end there because those employees of the bank may lose their jobs or incur loses themselves since it is assumed that they should have taken thorough vetting of customers before releasing any funds to them. If this happens it may indicate recruitment process may not have been sufficiently done to acquire the best employees who cannot fall for the fraudsters or the defaulters in this particular case. This may require the organization, bank affected to recheck their methods of recruitment and selection in the future. It may also result in the loss of credibility of the recruitment agency that may have been used by the bank to acquire its employees. This will therefore influence the overall mode of staffing (LeMay, 2007). Despite the negatives results of illegal immigration however, there are positive aspects of the illegal immigration to the economy. The most obvious one is the provision of cheap labor to the industries and agriculture. Most immigrants who come from poor countries do menial jobs like maids, cultivating for the flowers and other jobs that residents of the United States may see it necessary for them to do so. This labor when also provided in farms is relatively cheaper than that of the qualified people who reside in that country. This will ultimately minimize the cost of production an ultimately raises the profits margins of the company or the farmer thus influencing growth positively (OECD, 2000). In relation to staffing, it will be realized that no formal recruitment is done when acquiring such form of cheap labor. This therefore shows that, illegal immigration has the positive effect of reducing the cost of recruitment and selection. This will reduce the cost of production and an overall rise in the revenue of the employer. As has been stated earlier, most of the illegal immigrants who are employed prefer cash payment for their work that they have done than the use of credit cards. This is simply because they want to avoid being tracked since it is very possible with the use of credit cards. The cash payment will increase cash flow in the retail business because they will make most of their purchases there. Increase in cash flow will mean that the business in question has made larger amount of sales and it leads to greater revenues and profits. The firm that has made profits may think of expanding its premises and this creates employment opportunities to other people who have skills in the market. The issue of staffing arises here since recruitment agencies may be called in to carry out the exercise and will be required to do so with diligence as to ensure that the best employees are chosen and that they will be able to serve in a better manner that will enhance the profitability and service delivery. It is clearly indicated that cash paid to the illegal immigrants directly or indirectly influence the employment opportunities for other workers in the economy (Djajic, 2001). Immigrants who move to another country though illegally provide a larger market for the locally produced goods. This is because their living standards will improve compared to their home country. This will obviously spur economic growth of the entire nation with increase in the level of growth. This includes creation of a variety of job opportunities to all the people in that country. A further positive aspect that illegal immigration may bring is the purchase of real estate by the immigrants. They may also buy vehicles and this will enhance the growth of the insurance industry. Growth will obviously include the increase in the number of workers in the industry in question and this will influence staffing just as discussed in the cases studied initially. Illegal immigration is a complex issue but we cannot assume that it has no solution (Brings, 1984). The government of the United States and that of Mexico should start by imposing hefty fines to those found in the crime of illegal immigration and the money that is collected should be used to implement efficient security at the border. When this is done, those planning to do so will be discouraged because they will obviously not be able to pay and the only option they will have are to use genuine means to gain entry to the United States. We should not always assume that is cheap but rather have this in mind that it is a source of problems that are very harsh to the economy. Most immigrants in Mexico come over illegally or from other countries in search for jobs in the United States and they prefer the low pay in the United States than a relatively well paying job in their country of origin like Mexico (Seltser, et al 1998). Conclusion The process of staffing constitutes recruitment and selection of the best qualified personnel with the use of the best ethics in acquisition of employees. This is usually done by global human resource managers or recruitment agencies on behalf of companies or individuals and it is their duty to ensure that the best recruitment procedures are followed so as to obtain the qualified personnel (Scullion Collings, 2006). However, illegal immigration has brought in a lot of problems that affect the quality of the recruitment procedures. As it has been seen in this research, illegal immigration may affect the process of staffing in several ways chief among them, shortage of labor in the country of origin, increase in crime that lead to lowered self esteem of the workers, and distortion of the law of demand and supply. In addition to this there is a further use of public facilities like hospitals and schools in excess of what they may be able to do so. This results in influencing the attitude of workers towards work. It has also been reported that there is increased crime, smuggling of goods and drug trafficking between the border of Mexico and the United States (Lee, 1996). It is however important to not that that illegal immigration has some positive effects and this may include the provision of cheap labor to companies and individuals by lowering the operational cost thus enhancing the market revenue. The laborers also provide ready market for the very local goods that may have otherwise have been wasted and this will influence labor supply in one way or the other. Anything that influences labor supply also influences how and when the recruitment and selection process is carried out (Brings, 1984). Furthermore, it determines how best the ethics have been executed since the greater the degree of ethics that been followed the better the staffing procedures and one is sure to get the best qualified employee out of the others. It is apparently clear that the past history of illegal immigration has been pronounced and has affected the process of economic growth in one way or the other in the United States and Mexico. The effects extend up to affecting the quality of labor in the market and unequal economic growth between the two countries. It is necessary therefore for the leaders of the nations affected to put up measures that will end up this vice once and for all. Illegal immigration is also rampant in Europe evidenced by the number of ships originating from Africa but are regularly arrested though some are unfortunately drowned in the event that they meet strong waves and tides of the sea. This problem can be solved by ensuring that the mother nations have improved economy so that its citizens may not see the need to immigrate to other well developed countries (Seltser, et al 1998). References: Adler, L. L. Gielen, U. P (2003). Migration: Immigration and Emigration in International Perspective. 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