I own a small manufacturing company. Here are my observations:
1. Regulation is killing our competitiveness. I spend 50% of my time meeting requirements from the Fire Dept., City, State, EPA, OSHA, et al. I have very expensive wallpaper (permits, training certificates, etc.) that covers an entire wall of my main office and costs thousands per year to renew.
2. Young Americans don’t want to do hard, hot, dirty work. My Foreman and I often bet on how many HOURS a new hire will work before quitting. All of my top workers are green card holders....Yes, we did get the BEST workers that Mexico had to offer. Don’t know about the recent immigrants.
3. Young Americans lack skills. I have never hired a high school grad who can convert fractions to decimals or multiply without a calculator. Nor can they spell or follow written process instructions.
4. We survive by our wits. Some of my competitors have massively automated to cut the labor out of the product cost. In my case, we offer very high quality and turn orders around in as little as 30 minutes. They cannot outsource that kind of service to China!
I agree with you on 1 and 4, but 2 and 3 just don’t fit together. So you are finding hard working Mexican green card holders who are fluent in English and math with a high school diploma? Let me guess, they work cheaper too. Where in the world are you finding those guys? I think you are confusing the two types of workers that you are hiring(white and blue collars).