Day Laborers
Immigrant day laborers are almost entirely male,5
predominantly Latino and immigrant, mostly
recently arrived (less than five years), and overwhelmingly unauthorized to be in this country legally.
Clearly, the overwhelming majority of day laborers are Latinos, with Mexicans comprising the single
largest group. Mexican origin men make up 77 percent of this population, just shy of their proportion (80
percent) of all Latinos in Los Angeles County in 1990 (U.S. Census Bureau, 1991). A little over one
percent of day laborers are either U.S. born or of a non-Latino background. More than half of day
laborers have been in the United States for less than five years, and almost 30 percent immigrated to this
country during the previous year. Surprisingly, almost one quarter (23.4 percent) of day laborers has been
in the United States for more than eleven years, with ten percent having been here longer than twenty
years. Even though this labor market is overwhelmingly immigrant, a dichotomy between recent arrivals
(i.e., less than 1 year) and older immigrants (i.e., 11+ years) clearly exists.