Employment Opportunities

"Haven't you heard?  The job crisis is over!"  So reads the headline of an Opinion piece in today's electronic edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  I found it particularly interesting that the average pay for such work done by our "illegals" is over $10.00 an hour.  It's a prime example of what pulls Salvadorans and others from Central America to the United States.  Good paying jobs!  Good paying for the immigrant.  Obviously, not good enough for "real" Americans.

Why would Salvadorans consider this type of work, and it's corresponding pay, worth risking their lives to get?  Why would they make an expensive, deadly, 2,000 mile journey to work in our fields in Alabama?  Why don't they just stay home and work in their own country?

Here in El Salvador, on the other side of the WALL, they talk of "forced migration."  And what forces them out of their country?  If you come down here, I  guarantee that you will be able to answer that question after a mere 24 hours.

But, surely, you ask, there is work here in their own country!

Yes, there is.  Let me introduce you to some of the "employment opportunities" El Salvador has to offer.

Here's Maria Antonia.  She stands on the street corner six days a week.  Selling newspapers.  The paper I buy from Maria Antonia costs $0.25.  That's right, a quarter.  Maria Antonia seems to have a pretty respectable job.  I don't know what she makes every time she sells a paper for a quarter, but it can't be much.  Oh, and the current price for a pound of beans, a staple in the Salvadoran diet, is over a dollar.

El Salvador was just rated the most violent country in the world!  Given the level of violence, the amount of security is not surprising.  Every major business and institution hires its own security guards who patrol the business, the area and the neighborhood.  They all brandish big guns.  There are more private security guards in this country than police.

Here's Gabriel, a neighborhood security guard.  He guards several blocks, and is paid by the home owners and businesses on the streets.

Near the corner where I live there is a big roasted chicken restaurant.  You can get an entire roasted chicken with fixins for under $13.00.   This place has two security guards.  Since I pass these guys every day on my way to school,  I gradually got to know them.   Yesterday, I stopped and asked one of them, "How many days do you work?"  "Six days a week."  "And how many hours?"  "Twelve hours a day?"  "And how much do you earn?"  "$6.00" he answered.  "Six dollars", I repeated, "an hour?"  "No, that's for the 12 hours!"

"And your friend, there's two of you."  "Yes, he'll work 24 hours straight today."  And, he continued, "they won't even give us a cup of coffee.  If we want to eat here, we have to pay for everything we eat.  It's impossible here."

According to the Salvadoran National Police there are 22,000 private security guards in El Salvador.

Of course, you can choose to be your own business person here in El Salvador.  There is no end of opportunities if you have an entrepreneurial spirit.  There seems to be millions of plastic bottles in El Salvador.  You buy soda, juice, milk, and of course, water, in plastic bottles.  So, there are bottles everywhere.  Most of them end up in the bags of garbage put out on the streets for collection.  Thousands of plastic bags, full of garbage.  Maybe full of plastic bottles.

And after they are put out for collection they become fair game.  For the dogs, the birds, the cats, and the collectors.

Independent contractors abound here in El Salvador.  So, there is great potential if you want to get into recycling.  You just have to be willing to walk.  A lot.  And to collect.  A lot.  To earn one dollar you must bring 10 pounds of plastic bottles to the recycling center.  Can you picture 10 pounds of plastic bottles?  If you collect soda cans it will take exactly 34 cans for you to get 50 cents.  Of course, you can flatten the cans as you collect them.  But, you'll be carrying more weight to earn your daily wage.

Home delivery is big here.  There is always someone coming by your house announcing the sale of tomales, or bread, or fish, or water, or just offering to fix your plumbing, or whatever.  Most everyone only drinks bottled water.  And it comes to your house by hand truck or big truck.  So, there's another employment opportunity.  Just walk through hundreds of neighborhoods each day selling water.

The only trouble is, these are the guys often hit up for "rent."  Ya, that's when the local gang member comes up to you and says, "you owe us a little rent, my friend."  And you pay, one way or another.  With cash or your life.  After awhile, if you are still alive, you quit your route and your business.  And you go, where?

Everywhere you go in El Salvador there is a little tiendecita.  A little store in the front of a house where the neighbors can buy a few basics.  Like tomatoes, eggs, onions.  But, most of the products for sale in these storefront shops are junk food.  Starting with the ever present and available Coca-cola to other sodas, to all sorts of chips and other packaged "foods".  And sadly, this is what the kids are eating.  All day.  And the empty bags are mindlessly thrown on the ground.  Leaving the country looking like a giant garbage dump.

And even the Coke is guarded!  Heaven forbid anyone steal the Coke!

Mal nutrition is a huge issue for the Salvadorans.  But, that's typical of poor people, I guess.   And a topic for another time.

No, I can't see any reason to go north for those $10.00 an hour jobs picking peppers and tomatoes in the hot sun of Alabama, peaches in Georgia, peppers and onions in New Mexico, or making cheese in Wisconsin.  Not when there are all those good secure jobs here in El Salvador.  In this, one of the poorest countries of Central America.  In the most violent country of the world.

Well, I gotta go and buy my newspaper from Maria Antonia.  She's waiting for me on the corner of Boulevard Constitucion and Calle Motocross.  OK, I've got my quarter.

From San Salvador,

Carlitos Buenischke