Translating a Scholarly Article for a Public Audience
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Translating a Scholarly Article for a Public Audience
Do state employment eligibility verification laws affect job turnover?
Pia m. Orrenius, Madeline zavodny, and Emily gutierre
Translation
PRESS RELEASE
IS E-VERIFY DOING MORE HARM THAN GOOD?
A recent study shows that E-verify is making life harder for the Hispanic community
Here in the United States, the issue of immigration and the high rate of unauthorized immigrants has been a topic for discussion for decades now. Most states especially those that borders areas around Mexico suffer the most. Mexican nationals pass through the border into America illegally and seek to find better life or rather greener pastures. This trend has been going on and there are now about 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the country with most of them from Mexico forming part of the Hispanics in the country.
Recently, the government through congress just passed laws where they require employers implement E-verify laws when recruiting new employees into to their workplaces. Through this, the eligibility of employees is checked and as for unauthorized immigrants, E-verify laws might make them not find jobs anywhere in the United States, or at least in the states that have passed this law. Consequently, as for those who already are employed, their ability to transfer to other jobs would be impaired since once they need employment, they would have to go through the ‘E-verify process’ which automatically would deem them ineligible to work in that state and in addition to that, be forced to go back to their home country.
With that said, this study aims to show how using E-verify laws affects the Hispanics and several employers who have unauthorized immigrants as part of their workforce. The study used data from the Quarterly Workforce Indicators QWI where according to the researchers, this data was effective in the sense that not only did it enable them have a more detailed look on employee turnover, it also was a way of looking at the whole situation in a different angle/ perspective. Researchers based the QWI on the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics LEHD, which incorporates many private sector employees in America from 2004 to 2014. This data came from all the states that had initially passed these laws, which are Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, and Tennessee. A regression model was used in analyzing the data obtained by the researchers where they assumed that E-verify mandates are exogenous regarding the contemporaneous labor market outcomes.
Implementation of the E-verify laws by employers had adverse effects on both the employers and the Hispanic employees in the country, both employed and unemployed unauthorized Hispanic immigrants. Employers who already have unauthorized immigrants on their payroll and workforce enjoy a luxury of reduced training since these employees are likely to remain in the organizations since seeking employment elsewhere might not work for them. In addition, employers can offer lower wages and enjoy lower hiring costs. On the other hand, employees who form part of the unauthorized group may receive lower wages, also their ability to transfer to other organization is prohibited resulting to monotony of work and reduced overall productivity of the organization, and national labor force since these talents of the unauthorized employees cannot be utilized elsewhere.
In addition, the states that E-verify laws were implemented lead to increased unemployment rates among the Hispanic immigrants since no one would be able to be eligible for any job position especially to those who got into the country illegally. Separation rates and new hires reduced because of implementing these new laws among the Hispanics. The percentage drop on employment was 4% and 2.7% on separation rates. New hire rates experienced a drop of 1.8% translating to a drop in job turnover among the Hispanics.
Consequently, in the unauthorized immigrant-intensive industries such as the construction sector, dry cleaning, eating and drinking, building and ground services, and bakeries had a rising employment rate of the other communities other than Hispanic while the rates for unauthorized immigrants fell both in initial and total employment.
However, the researcher say that these laws will do some damage before we start reaping the befits. In addition, the results obtained in the study are not conclusive because of relying on aggregate data and policy makers should ensure that the policies they implement wouldn’t negatively impact the labor-market turnover.
Employers are likely to resent them irrespective of the talents and abilities in the field they are looking employment for. These effects were evident on all the states that had implemented the E-verify laws and employers were actively screening employees for eligibility.
REFLECTIVE ANALYSIS
This article was published by contemporary economic policy in 2018.
Authors
The authors were Orrenius Pia M., Madeline Zavody and Emily Gutierrez who are credible scholars in the field of economics and their work has a larger audience who appreciate their effort and analyses. I translated their article for people who understand less when information is given using economic terms. Simplicity and accuracy are what comprise of this translation.
Structure
This scholarly article was in the form of a research study, which had several parts, the IMRAD where in each, the authors gave precise and detailed explanation of the subject matter. On the other hand, my translation is much shorter integrating the introduction and the results of the study skipping the methodology part and how the results are calculated using regression analysis. In addition, I used a much catchy title that the public can be attracted to.
Language used
In this translation, I used simple language that still projected what this study was focusing on. Authors were using words such as “longitudinal employer-household dynamics” which shows how precise their data was. For me, I knew using such words, which I barely understood, would not be eligible to the public to consume. A summary of the study was efficient.
Reference conventions
Lastly, I thought that if I would cite the sources from the study that were used would not be effective since the public just want information, which is easily understandable. The study was majorly based on a mathematical approach using regression models to derive their results, which is complex especially in a public context.
Purpose
The purpose behind this was to let the public aware that the new E-verify laws that most states are implementing have a greater effect on the economy and to the Hispanics in particular. Something needs to be done to help this situation.