Migrantless Arizona output would drop 8.2% or $29 billion

Migrantless Ariz. output would drop 8.2% (by Ryan Randazzo, The Arizona Republic -
7.11.07)

If all undocumented workers were removed from Arizona's workforce, economic output would drop annually by at least $29 billion, or 8.2 percent, according to a report by the University of Arizona Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy.

It also found that Arizona's documented and undocumented immigrants generate nearly $44 billion in output annually.

The study also looked at what would happen to specific industries that lost most non-citizen workers. The figures assumed unskilled citizens would fill some positions.

Without most non-citizen immigrants, the simulations showed:

• $6.56 billion in lost construction output.
• $3.77 billion lost in manufacturing.
• $2.48 billion lost in service sectors.
• $600.9 million lost in agriculture.

"Filling the specific jobs in question would require large numbers of low-skilled workers, and the U.S. education system produces relatively few of them," Gans said. "There simply aren't enough additional workers in Arizona to fill the jobs."

There are an estimated half-million [undocumented] immigrants in Arizona.