Research shows that it’s often not easy for companies to replace immigrant labor with American workers, says Britta Glennon, an assistant professor of management at the Wharton School. And that can leave business leaders in a tricky spot.
“They tend to have a different set of skills,” Glennon says of immigrant workers. “They tend to have a different set of experiences and knowledge … they’re bringing just a different type of worker to these companies.”
For example, at Socorro, Texas-based Growing With Sara Farm, which produces fresh fruits and vegetables, the company relies on a small team of contract workers, and two of their most successful recent hires have been Venezuelan refugees, says co-owner Marty Loya, 67.
“You’ve got to work when it’s hot, you’ve got to work when it’s cold, windy,” Loya says. Their refugee hires have been well-equipped to handle that, she says: “They’re used to working in those conditions … You take someone that just graduated out of high school here and going to college, [and] they’re not.”
Thus, for companies that rely on immigrant workers’ abilities, “if you lose that population,” Glennon says, “that can be detrimental to firm performance.”
