Marketplace - Immigrants fill high-risk jobs that U.S.-born workers don’t

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

Among the missing workers from yesterday’s bridge collapse are men from El Salvador, Mexico and Guatemala. According to the Labor Department, Latin American immigrants are among the workers most likely to die on the job. Plus, ever heard of “search funds”? Business school grads are using them as a fast track to the CEO seat. Also: The yen is at a 30-year low, and secondhand desks helped kickstart one business owner’s journey.

Bigger is more cost-effective, yes, but maybe not always better. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizal. It is Wednesday today, the 27th of March. Good as always to have you along, everybody. It is now, as you know, a recovery operation in Baltimore beneath the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Six people are presumed dead, the crew that was working on the bridge when it was hit. Federal investigators have recovered the ship's voice recorder. We know there was a power failure on board. We know that it will take months or more.

We know that it will take hundreds of millions, maybe billions of dollars to rebuild. And the Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said today that it is going to be, and this is a quote, a long and difficult path to full recovery. We also know that part of this was physics. Mass times velocity equals momentum, enough momentum to take down that bridge within one minute. In other words, this was a very big vessel. Marketplace's Justin Ho gets us going with how cargo ships have been getting bigger. Back in the 70s, when the Francis Scott Key Bridge was built, container ships were a fraction of the size that they are today. That's because there just wasn't as much global trade. Then came globalization, and it took off. The more and more trade that

was happening, the shipping companies were like, well, instead of sending more ships back and forth, how about bigger ships? That's Susan Galisik, a professor at Colorado State University. She says companies realize that bigger ships are a lot more efficient. They carry more containers. They're more fuel efficient. And some of the new ships require fewer people to run the ship. So they're reducing fuel and labor, which are the big variable costs in transportation. In the last 10 years or so, ship sizes have exploded. Now the largest can handle more than 24,000 containers. Thing is, when ships get that big, they also get more risky.

Imagine looking for a source of fire in 25,000 containers. That's Captain Rahul Khanna, Global Head of Marine Risk Consulting at the insurance company Allianz. He says today's big ships can't even dock at a lot of ports. And then there's what happens when one of these things, you know, crashes into something. Just a couple weeks ago, a container ship at a port in Turkey slammed into three cranes and destroyed them. Such instances have been happening in the last few years. And as insurers, we are obviously concerned because the cost of these incidents have become quite high. American ports have been spending a lot of money on upgrades to

handle bigger ships. A few years ago, the Infrastructure Act set aside $17 billion for port repairs and expansion. Even so, Thomas Goldsby at the University of Tennessee says U.S. ports still have a lot of work to do. We now need to have canals that are deep enough to accommodate these vessels coming alongside the port. You need to have the cranes to accommodate. On the other hand, Gillespie says global trade has been slowing down, so we might see shipping companies embrace smaller ships again. I'm Justin Ho for Marketplace. As I said, six people who'd been working the night shift on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed are presumed dead. The missing construction workers include men from El Salvador, Mexico and Guatemala.

They're the most visible example right now of what the Labor Department said in a recent report, which is that immigrants from Latin America among the workers most likely to die in the workplace. Marketplace's Elizabeth Troval has that story. For more than a decade, George Escobar has been working with Latino immigrant workers for the advocacy group CASA. One of their members, Miguel Luna, is one of the men who didn't come home from his construction job on the Baltimore Bridge earlier this week. He was looking forward to establishing his own business. Escobar says Mexican and Central American workers like Luna have been the lifeblood of the Baltimore economy. They come here for better opportunities, right?

And unfortunately, even when they're in the middle of the night working a graveyard shift on the middle of a flimsy bridge, that represents a future for them and that represents opportunity for them. Opportunity to help their families here and back home, taking the jobs they can get, as these workers often have less education and limited English fluency. Pia Arrhenius is with the Dallas Fed. They're kind of naturally slotted into blue-collar jobs, many of them that are in occupations and industries where they're just characterized by more injury and fatalities. Filling jobs U.S.-born workers won't.

If we didn't have the immigration, you would see a lot of bottlenecks to growth that companies and cities and municipalities and whoever's building stuff, you know, see a lot higher costs associated with building, but you'd also see delays. These immigrant workers, some who may not have legal status, also have less agency to speak up about unsafe conditions, says Marcy Goldstein-Gelb with the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. They are at the bottom of the lowerarchy, and that means that they toil in the most dangerous jobs, work the longest hours, and have the least ability to speak up in the face of exploitations. But immigrant workers will continue to show up, advocate George Escobar says, as Baltimore rebuilds from this tragedy. It'll be those same neighbors. It'll be the victims' neighbors that will be back on that

construction site. As he says, always happens after a disaster. I'm Elizabeth Troval for Marketplace. I'm Elizabeth Troval for Marketplace. It's been a while since we've done foreign exchange, so here you go. This morning, the Japanese yen hit its lowest level in 34 years against the dollar, almost 152 yen to the greenback, if you're a trader. The government in Tokyo is keeping a close eye, we're told, ready to intervene if need be. Disorderly currency moves can be disruptive, is why they're keeping an eye on things. The root cause of said currency situation is that until not too long ago, the Bank of Japan has been keeping interest rates over there extremely low, negative even, to help stimulate the economy, while American interest rates have shot up, which means currency traders want dollars so as to be able to collect on those higher yields. But when the third largest economy in the world sees its currency decline, it's going to have ripple effects on the first largest economy in the world, too. Marketplace's Matt Levin reports. When the yen falls relative to the dollar,

Japanese exports become cheaper for American consumers. At least that's the theory. But if you're waiting for those 2025 Toyota Camrys to come down from that $28,000 price tag, the Council on Foreign Relations' Brad Setzer has some bad news for you. Japanese auto exports, which should be much cheaper as a result of the weakening of the yen, there hasn't been as strong a response as you might have expected. That's partly because over half of Japanese cars sold in the U.S. are actually produced in the U.S. And Japanese automakers have learned that keeping prices high is more profitable than flooding the American market with cheaper options. But Setzer says American consumers could see cheaper imports from elsewhere.

The more the yen weakens, the more other currencies in Asia weaken. Which should mean discount electronics from Korea or bargain textiles from China. The flip side of a weakening yen, American exports to Japan become more expensive. Our biggest export, liquefied natural gas, shouldn't really be impacted. But economist Takatoshi Ito at Columbia University says American agriculture could take a hit. Beef is big and fruits, including oranges, are big. Pork is also big. According to the Department of Commerce, Japan is the largest source of foreign direct investment in the U.S.

If the yen continues to slide, we may see fewer Toyota factories in Kentucky or Alabama in the future, says Joseph Gagnon at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. A weak yen makes it more expensive for a Japanese company to open a factory in the U.S. And by the same token, American companies may find it more enticing to

open up shop in Japan. I'm Matt Levin for Marketplace. It is all but a truism that in presidential election years, the economy is at or near the top of people's lists of key issues. To wit, the Pew Research Center earlier this year, 73 percent of people, that's the number one response, said strengthening the economy should be a top priority for Congress and the president. But the thing is that sometimes what voters believe about the economy doesn't line up with what's actually happening out there or even with their own economic day to day. Marketplace's Kimberly Adams has been looking at that gap between economic beliefs and economic reality. And here's the first in her series. One of the places where the broader economy shows up in everyone's personal life is at the grocery store. Dawson's Market is in Rockville, Maryland, a suburb of D.C. It's got a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods kind of vibe and steamed tables in the deli loaded with takeout food.

Bart Jablonski owns the store. I think people working makes a good economy. I think a lot of good products that are out there and efficiencies in products, having things that people want to purchase. He says he's seeing the economic recovery at Dawson's Market. Supply chains easing up, more customers coming in. Pricing is obviously the top discussion in food. Prices have gone up all last year. We're definitely starting to see them level out a little bit. Outside the store, it seemed like every one of the people buzzing around an outdoor shopping center on their lunch breaks had their own take on just what this economy looks like. Jacques Jelin is 91 and a retired lawyer. It's not perceived as good, but erroneously.

I think all the indicators are going well. Jelin pays attention to the macroeconomic data showing cooling, inflation, low unemployment, and a bullish stock market. But grocery prices and gas prices are up, and that's what the average person thinks. And they've been told that things are bad by certain people, but they're not that bad. Even folks doing well for themselves seemed skeptical about the economy. Juan Ymanza is a 48-year-old real estate agent. This is a lot of opportunities, but I would say that I'm not happy with what's happening now. But I will say that I'm not happy with what's happening now. I mean, our economy is not great, so it's time for a change.

But he says his own personal economy is great, and attributes that to the hard work he put in over decades living in the United States. But a lot of people that I talk to and I surround myself with, I know they're struggling to make ends meet. That's the case for 29-year-old Melody Wong, who was visiting the supermarket with her partner. I'm lucky enough that I can align my parents, but it's not great so far. Wong recently graduated from college and is working as a substitute teacher. My standard for a good economy isn't the stock market.

It's whether or not I can pay my bills and, like, have food to eat. The struggles of younger Americans came up a lot with the folks bustling in and out of Dawson's. Em Aragon of Tacoma Park, Maryland, was one of them. People are working again, but that doesn't necessarily mean that, like, people still struggling on like the other things and other aspects of living and surviving while still working. Aragon works for a non-profit gallery and likes the job, but... I'm definitely like struggling. I think that like I would have thought like at 26 I'd have much more of a surplus of money so that I can afford to like travel and do things that like feels like a human thing to do. But it just feels like I can only work and do other side hustles.

Dawson's market is in a pretty affluent area just outside D.C. with lots of people with high paying jobs. But it's expensive to live here. And even they struggle to say we are in a good economy. Something as simple as going to the movies is more expensive. Max Vanover is a 35-year-old biostatistician working for a clinical research organization. He says he makes decent money, but... I'd like to definitely save a lot more money. I had to downside in order to save a little bit more,

but I think you probably shouldn't have to do that in order to save. And whatever the numbers say about the economy, what matters come Election Day is what people think and feel about their own economic realities. In Rockville, Maryland, I'm Kimberly Adams for Marketplace. Coming up. It was hot pink with all of the crowns and everything. I mean, how much more do you need to hear, right? First, though, let's do the numbers. Dow Industrials up 477 points today, 1.2%, 39,760. The Nasdaq increased to 83 points.

That's about a half percent, 16,399. S&P 500 up 44 points, nine tenths percent, 52 and 48 there. We heard earlier from Matt Levin about the slide of the Japanese yen. So let's take a look at some of the Japanese companies listed on the NYSE, shall we? Toyota Motors, based in Nagoya, Japan, it dropped six tenths of one percent. Competitor Honda, headquartered in Tokyo, picked up a tenth percent. Sony Corporation of America, which has its U.S. headquarters in New York City, down two-tenths of 1%. Candy makers are pushing some non-chocolate treats this Easter holiday,

which may ease the sticker shock among consumers spooked by high cocoa prices. Talked about that the other day. Hershey's introduced new cookies and cream, bunny and lemon crisp Kit Kats as well, neither of which honestly sound appealing. Do without what you will. Hershey's surged 1.5%. Today you're listening to Marketplace. This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Risdahl.

All right, so imagine this for me for just one second. You're getting ready to finish up your MBA, ready to take on the business world, maybe revolutionize some stuff, maybe run your own company. But the startup world just isn't looking so great. According to Pitch Book, investors put more than $170 billion into startups last year, which is, of course, a lot of money, but that's a 30% drop from 2022. So maybe instead of being a founder, you decide to look around for an existing company that you can just buy instead. Nell Gologly wrote in the New York Times the other day about these aspiring

CEOs and how they go about raising what are called search funds. Nell, welcome to the program. Thanks so much, Guy. Happy to be here. So how do these things work? Because, you know, I've been doing this a while and I've yet to really hear of them. Yeah. You know, I sort of had the same conclusion. I was on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago, as one does, who's sort of a business nerd like myself, and had seen that someone had launched something that seems sort of like an investment fund, but wasn't exactly that. And as I did some digging,

I uncovered that what I was reading about was a quote unquote search fund, which is basically a pool of money that an entrepreneur can raise from investors in order for that entrepreneur to spend a couple of months to a couple of years looking for a company and then acquiring that company and ultimately running it as CEO. But the kind of funny thing is that they often don't have a long track record in running a company or

a business. Oftentimes, they've only had a few years of experience. You know, it's funny you use the word entrepreneur, which to my mind, and I imagine the minds of many, sort of implies somebody who has an idea, scratches together some money, starts a company, and does it that way. So this is not that. This is not that. This is sort of the shortcut to that. It's the idea of taking somebody else's really good idea and identifying that. And if you can cobble the money together, taking over the company from there. When the producer on this piece, Sarah brought this up in our morning editorial meeting a week or two ago, my gut

reaction was, man, this sounds really bro-y, right? Because business schools are kind of bro-y and that sort of is what this smacks of. So what you have is a bunch of young, mostly male Masters of the Universe business school students going out and convincing people to give them money to let them buy companies. Right. That's what this is. Yeah. I mean, you're not wrong that it takes a certain amount of kind of confidence and perhaps a bit of bro-y-ness to be able to say, hey, I don't have a lot of experience running a business. Maybe I've spent a few years doing some work before my MBA, but I believe I have the capacity to be a real leader. So, hey, investors, pick me to do this. And in some cases they do. What kinds of companies are usually the target of acquisition,

as they do, what kinds of companies are usually the target of acquisition, as it were? Yeah. So companies that they're looking for are already profitable, have recurring revenue, often in sort of the $5 to $10 million range. So you can think about the landscaping business or waste management business or HVAC in not necessarily a big city. It could be, you know, Toledo, Ohio, as an example. So that's sort of the typical acquisition target. I don't want to falsely romanticize this, but it does seem a little bit like not wanting to do the work of entrepreneurship, right? They just want to run something. And as you said early on, are sort of taking a shortcut. You know, I think that the shortcut is certainly a shortcut to the CEO seat. But I will say we have at this point a sort of generation of quote-unquote baby boomers who are nearing retirement or already at the stage of retirement, many of whom might not have an ex

of kin or an heir for their company. And so what these searchers are doing is saying, hey, we want to promote that longevity of those companies and give those owners a chance to retire with a good sum of money that they can exit with. So that rather than a sort of shortcut to a CEO position, they're really providing kind of the next handoff to this generation of small businesses that are in many ways the bedrock of today's economy. Yeah. And these searchers, as you call them, which totally fits, it's okay with them that they don't have the passion. They just want to run something. They want to be CEO and that's what they're going to do. Correct. And you speak to them and if you were to talk to them about kind of where's your passion,

you know, they'll say the passion is really in the leadership of this, in the ability to sort of take on a company and be able to grow it with a more sort of organic growth year over year. Right. And it's not about building a better mousetrap. It's just about running a company, right? Exactly. Nogal Ogley at the New York Times. Thanks, Nogal. Appreciate it. Thanks so much, Guy. Have a good one. Kimberly was talking earlier about how consumers are feeling about the economy versus what the big picture indicators are telling us. I mentioned this yesterday. I think the conference board's consumer confidence survey ticked down a little bit in March, mostly expectations for the near term future weighing that down. But a silver lining, our feelings about the economy today and specifically the labor market

were up just a touch. Now, when you have consumers who are overall confident, you have small businesses that are hoping to benefit from those slightly better feelings. Here's today's installment of our series, My Economy. My name is LaToya Smith. I am based in Towson, Maryland. I am the owner and the artist of Lavish Furniture Flips and Interior Design. I'm a sustainable interior designer, so I use what is in the community. I restore it. I refinish it. I paint it. It's beautiful glassware and chairs and tables and dining room, maple dining room tables from the 1950s. That's what I have at the front of my store. I opened the store. I was working for the Army Corps of Engineers and COVID hit. I started salvaging the secondhand desks from thrift stores and Facebook marketplace and started painting

them. My first desk was given to Sydney, my first cousin's daughter, and I painted it with unicorns. It was hot pink with all of the crowns and everything. So I gave her that on her desk and she was more than happy. Parents noticed that I could do this with a desk. They was like, okay, so what about my dining room table that we hate? And what about the coffee table? They were pulling up at the driveway, dropping things off. I needed a space. My basement in Baltimore, the basements are low. I was on my knees, my hands on my knees doing these dining room tables and these coffee tables. And I love my house. I don't want to scratch it up. So I found a spot and I negotiated my butt off and got me a decent rent in a prominent space. And I said, you know what? I'll give myself a year. That was three years ago.

When I began the business, I just kind of did it. I had no expectations. the business, I just kind of did it. I had no expectations. I was like, if I build it, they will come, but will they buy? And then they did. And I made a significant profit in the beginning until I had to have surgery. And I had to have surgery this past August. I had to shut down my store. Now, being a one-woman show, that hinders your business. People come back and it's growing. It's good, but it's not as good as it was before. The business is able to pay for itself. Of course, profit is great. Absolutely. But as long as I get to do what I love and stand behind my work and say, I did this,

I created this, I'm feeding my soul and the community. Latoya Smith, making art at Lavish Furniture Flips in Towson, Maryland. Cannot do this series without your help. Tell us, would you, how your economy is doing, wherever you are, whatever you do. Marketplace.org slash my economy. This final note on the way out today, driving in Manhattan, never a pleasant experience. Took a step closer to becoming both miserable and expensive today. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has approved this country's first congestion pricing plan. Fifteen bucks to drive below 60th Street during peak hours should put about a billion

dollars a year into the MTA's coffers. Potential lawsuits, of course, abound. Our media production team includes Brian Allison, Jake Cherry, Jessen Duller, Drew Jostad, Gary O'Keefe, Charlton Thorpe, Juan Carlos Dorado, and Becca Weinman. Jeff Peters is the manager of media production around here. I'm Kai Risdell. We will see you tomorrow, everybody. This is APN. All over the country. We need to improve reading in Wisconsin. Schools are changing the way they teach reading.

I'm calling for a renewed focus on literacy. We have gotten this wrong in New York and all across the nation. And it's happening because of a podcast. I think your podcast has changed my life. And I'm going to share this podcast with everyone I meet. Sold a Story investigates how teaching kids to read went wrong. New episodes of Sold a Story are available now.