More Americans Becoming Day Laborers

The high unemployment rate is making day labor in America the "occupation" of a far broader, more diverse population. While the informal nature of the sector makes it tough to compile accurate statistics, the number of people seeking casual work is rising across America, as is the number of women, non-Latinos, and people with white-collar experience taking up manual labor, according to researchers.

One Minnesota college graduate says he has started seeking casual work because he's not making enough as a substitute teacher to make ends meet. "It's a weird time for me and a lot of other people," he tells the Wall Street Journal. The type of work offered to day laborers who congregate at curbside hiring sites is also changing. With little construction work going on, laborers are now usually hired for moving or landscaping jobs that may last only a few hours.
(More day laborers stories.)