Job security but no advancement from bottom rung

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http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090808/us_working_at_the_bottom.html?sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=


Job security but no advancement from bottom rung
Jobs are safe for foreign-born workers with bottom-rung jobs, but they're stuck

* By Deepti Hajela and Michael Hill, Associated Press Writers
* On Saturday August 8, 2009, 10:13 am EDT

NEW YORK (AP) -- Sleep is a rare commodity for Juan Cortez. Between nights spent clearing tables at a Manhattan nightclub and days running food to customers in a Bronx restaurant, the 42-year-old Peruvian immigrant worries more about finding time for shuteye than job security.

More than 100 miles to the north in the Hudson Valley, Omar Guzman also isn't concerned about staying employed. The 20-year-old migrant farm worker spends his summer days picking peas and cherries, and by fall will be harvesting acres of apples.

Even with the unemployment rate above 9 percent, the nation's native-born jobless are looking at higher rungs of the labor market for their next career move. For immigrants like Cortez and Guzman, it means a degree of job security -- but also more competition if they want to advance into jobs above bussers and barbacks, runners, dishwashers and crop hands.

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