Abstract
For decades El Salvador has been reliant on migration, mainly to the US, to provide remittances and an outlet for widespread underemployment. The deportation of tens of thousands of migrants annually by the United States, however, threatens to exacerbate problems of joblessness, poverty, and informality in local economies, calling into question the suitability of prevailing economic development strategies. This study proposes an alternative approach—labor force-based development—that was initially proposed to assist US cities confronting widespread job losses following deindustrialization. Through a survey of 198 Salvadorans who were apprehended by US immigration authorities and deported, this article documents deportees’ employment experiences in El Salvador and the US, tenure in their primary occupation, education and training obtained, and the localities to which they will return. It also provides recommendations for improving the employment outcomes of deportees. Given that a substantial proportion of deportees have worked in the construction industry, opportunities exist for designing workforce development programs that meet the needs of jobseekers as well as local communities facing housing shortages.
Introduction
El Salvador’s anemic macroeconomic growth and low levels of job creation are contributing to what the World Bank has characterized as a vicious circle of slow growth and high migration. “A large real wage gap keeps attracting migrants to the U.S., with Salvadoran migrant families in the U.S. averaging about five times more in per capita income than their counterparts back home” (World Bank, 2015: 76). There are a number of factors that have led to the recent high levels of migration from El Salvador to the US. Key among these are family reunification and the need to escape violence. But, as the World Bank notes, economic disparities between the two countries play an outsize role in migration decisions. Despite the well-documented risks to safety and wellbeing that most Salvadoran migrants face during their arduous journeys to the US (Ramirez, 2017; Schmidt and Buechler, 2017; Swanson and Torres, 2016), a lack of viable economic opportunities at home encourages many to reluctantly accept these risks while hoping for the best (Ramos et al., 2014).
Households in El Salvador are heavily reliant on remittances, which places burdens on migrant workers in the US, especially those who do not have immigration or employment authorization. Working without authorization relegates the overwhelming majority of undocumented immigrants to sectors of the economy where pay is low, workplaces are unsafe, worker protections are disregarded, and employment—even under these difficult conditions—is precarious (Bernhardt et al., 2013; Passel and Cohn, 2016). Despite these hardships, however, remittances are absolutely vital to Salvadoran households (Ambler, 2019; Warnecke-Berger, 2020), since they provide needed income which functions as the primary protection against slipping deep into poverty.
The challenges immigrants and their families must confront are now being exacerbated by El Salvador’s “new” migration crisis—the deportation of thousands of migrants annually by the United States and Mexico. Research on the socioeconomic impacts of deportation has analyzed the damaging consequences involuntary removal has had on undocumented immigrants who had been living in the United States, as well as for their families in the US and abroad (see Coutin, 2016; Dingeman, 2018; Dingeman-Cerda and Coutin, 2012; Heidbrink, 2019; Patler and Golash-Boza, 2017; Rivas Castillo et al., 2014). Less attention, however, has been given to the impacts that deportations have on the economies to which deportees return. There is a danger that, in addition to the personal hardships incurred by deportees, mass deportation also can have economy-wide repercussions, especially for countries that have been heavily reliant on labor emigration. El Salvador provides a case in point. The deportation of tens of thousands of Salvadorans residing in the US is significantly exacerbating problems in El Salvador’s already-weak economy. The loss of migrant remittances and the swelling of the domestic labor force as a result of these removals are not only compounding the economic insecurities facing families and communities, they threaten to place a further drag on macroeconomic growth. El Salvador’s current low levels of job creation, deepening inequality, widespread informal employment, and high rates of poverty are clear signs of an economy that is incapable of adequately incorporating the thousands of migrants who are being deported to the country each year. As a result, the large number of deportations carried out by the US annually is, paradoxically perhaps, catalyzing future Salvadoran migration.
Redressing the adverse incorporation of deportees will require new economic development strategies and the cooperation of government ministries, community organizations, labor unions, and the private sector. Many deported migrants have acquired job skills and valuable work experience while employed in the US. Through targeted workforce programs, these skills could be further developed and better utilized, thereby enhancing deportees’ re-employment outcomes as well as the effectiveness of Salvadoran economic development initiatives. However, the absence of systematically collected, up-to-date information about the work histories and job skills of deportees or how these could be capitalized upon for the benefit of jobseekers and communities alike, has hampered government efforts to improve the economic re-incorporation of returning migrants. Writing a decade ago, Elsa Teodora Ramos (2009) lamented: One of the greatest problems, when studying the social circumstances surrounding migration, is that the governments of the country do not have a way to produce statistical data related to this phenomenon. The data that exist are scattered, disorderly, incomplete, and contain political biases, to the point that the issue of deportation of fellow Salvadorans is treated as a matter of national security. There has been a total secrecy . . . and interviews with government officials regarding this topic have largely been a fruitless endeavor. (author’s translation)
The article is organized as follows. The first section presents the survey methodology. The second section provides an overview of the economic context for migration from El Salvador as well as demographic data on the survey sample. The third section delves more deeply into the job market that deportees encounter upon their return to the country, as well as the geographic distribution of involuntary return. A paradigm for economic development that focuses on capitalizing on the skills and experiences of the labor force is introduced in the fourth section, along with survey results highlighting deportees’ work histories, education, and training. The fifth section considers the geography of return and the challenges it poses for the successful reintegration of deportees into local labor markets. Finally, recommendations are offered in sixth section.
Methodology
The study was initiated by the San Salvador-based Center for Worker and Migrant Integration/Centro de Integración para Migrantes, Trabajadores y Trabajadoras (CIMITRA) along with the US-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON). A survey instrument was developed by university researchers in El Salvador and the US, along with staff from CIMITRA and NDLON. Then, in partnership with the El Salvador National Directorate for Migration, a survey team comprised of student interviewers from José Simeón Cañas Central American University and Don Bosco University administered in-person surveys to deportees who (a) had been apprehended in the interior of the US and (b) had resided in the US for two years or more. These selection criteria were used because the project was designed to assess the job skills and experience deportees acquired in the US. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement no longer reports the number of deportees who have been apprehended at a US border and those who have been apprehended in the interior of the country. In 2016, the last year for which information is available, slightly more than half of those removed were apprehended in the interior (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, 2020).
Members of the survey team screened potential respondents to determine whether they met the two selection criteria. Eligible respondents were then asked whether they would be willing to anonymously complete the survey. Although precise response rates were not recorded, the survey team reported very few eligible respondents refused to complete the survey.
Deportees were surveyed upon their arrival in El Salvador from the US. The surveys were administered at the offices of the National Directorate for Migration (Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería), located in Colonia La Chacra, San Salvador, across eight days in May 2019. The average monthly number of deportees returning to El Salvador in 2019 was 890, and monthly totals that year varied from 482 in February to 1343 in October (author’s calculations from Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, 2020). The number of Salvadoran nationals deported in May 2019 was 1040, a figure somewhat higher than the monthly average. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not release data on the locality or state in which deportees were apprehended.
The economic context for migration
Prior to 1980, there was little migration from El Salvador to the United States. This abruptly changed during the 1980s as El Salvador plunged into a 12-year civil war that ultimately claimed 75,000 lives and caused the displacement of more than one million residents, largely to neighboring Central American countries and the United States. Scarred by the trauma of war and deepening socioeconomic inequality, Salvadorans continued to migrate to the US even after the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords formally ended the conflict. In the early 2000s, several devastating earthquakes spurred additional migration, with approximately 200,000 Salvadorans being granted legal residency in the US under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. Today, migration is being driven by a combination of factors, including to seek economic opportunity, escape violence, and unify families. As a result of these factors, in the period since 1980, the number of El Salvador-born residents of the US rose from 95,000 to approximately 1.4 million (Migration Policy Institute, 2015; Pew Research Center, 2017). Nearly half (725,000) of Salvadoran migrants residing in the US do so without immigration authorization (Pew Research Center, 2017).
Over the past three decades, a weak domestic economy has been one of the primary factors motivating Salvadorans’ decision to emigrate. El Salvador has suffered from persistently low levels of economic growth, and continues to do so. In the post-civil war period, successive governments have generally adhered to the policy advice issued by multilateral financial institutions (including the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank) and the US, which has centered on deficit reduction, deregulation, and the liberalization of trade and investment flows (International Monetary Fund, 2019; Pastor and Conroy, 1995; Seelke, 2019; World Bank Group, 2018). Nevertheless, since 2000, only twice has annual GDP growth exceeded 3%, while the average growth rate during the last five years is just 2.3%, one of the lowest rates in Central America (World Bank, 2019b).
Slow growth has caused job creation to lag, while low-wage work predominates. The Salvadorian economy generates approximately 11,000 net new job openings annually, well below the number needed to employ the roughly 60,000 new labor market entrants who are seeking work each year (Fundación Salvadoreña para el Desarrollo Económico y Social, 2017). Deportations compound this problem significantly, though in this regard El Salvador is not unique. It is estimated that the return of deportees is “equivalent to at least 50% of the annual increase in the labor force in Central America” (Orozco and Yansura, 2015: 1). Like the other economies within the Northern Triangle, the Salvadoran economy is unable to effectively incorporate deportees, leading to widespread unemployment and worker discouragement.
Nationally, labor force participation rates for the population aged 15 and older have changed little since 1990, hovering around 60% (a figure that ranks El Salvador 100th in the world), though rural areas remain plagued by even higher levels of joblessness (International Labour Organization (ILO), 2017). Nearly two-thirds of the active labor force is in informal employment, including a large number of workers who are informally employed despite working in formal-sector enterprises (ILO, 2011). Residents’ economic difficulties are perhaps most clearly reflected in the poverty rate (representing those living on less than US$5.50 in 2011), which, despite falling since 2014, remains high in absolute terms (29.2%; World Bank, Global Poverty Working Group, 2018).
For Salvadorans, migration and economic development are inexorably linked. Not only has a weak domestic economy influenced the migration decisions of countless families, El Salvador as a whole is highly reliant on income earned by nationals living abroad. Remittances from family and friends accounted for 21.1% of El Salvador's annual GDP in 2018, one of the highest shares of remittance-dependent GDP in the world (World Bank, 2019a). Moreover, 91% of income remitted to El Salvador is sent by US residents (World Bank, 2018), which further underscores the close ties between the economies of the two countries. Although it is not evident from immigration policy debates, 78% of immigrants from El Salvador in 2015 had lived in the US for 10 years or more (Pew Research Center, 2017). These immigrants have established their lives in the US, with many having secured long-term employment while also accumulating economic assets, such as homes and other property. The money they remit provides essential incomes to families in El Salvador, which in turn boosts consumer spending that supports enterprises and employment.
The combination of high levels of unauthorized migration, slow growth, and a remittances-dependent economy poses unique hardships for Salvadorans—and the situation has become even more untenable in recent years as the US government has stepped up migrant apprehensions and deportations. Between fiscal years 2016 and 2018, 54,821 Salvadoran nationals were removed from the US, and more than 125,000 have been removed since fiscal year 2013 (US Department of Homeland Security, 2015, 2014; US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 2016, 2017, 2018). Notably, Pew Research Center (2017) analysis of survey data collected as part of the Encuesta de Migración en la Frontera Sur found that 97% of deported Salvadorans indicated that their search for work was one of the main reasons for migrating.
Large-scale deportations by the US have manifold consequences, including family separation, societal stigmatization, and other psychosocial hardships. Focusing strictly on some of the economic impacts of involuntary removals, for undocumented immigrants working in the US, the risk of deportation leads most to find work in sectors where wages are low and labor standards are routinely violated (Bernhardt et al., 2009; Doussard, 2013; Massey and Gelatt, 2010; Menjívar, 2015). This negatively affects their day-to-day quality of life and reduces the amount of money that can be earned and remitted. Furthermore, when immigrants are deported, these involuntary removals have economic ramifications that are experienced on multiple levels. For those who are deported, the disruptions to lives and livelihoods are immense and include the loss of jobs and earnings, the inability to remit income, and a return to an inhospitable labor market. For family members living in El Salvador who are supported by workers in the US, deportation results in an abrupt and unexpected loss of household income. Finally, for the Salvadoran economy, deportations result both in a direct loss of remittance income, reductions in job-generating consumer spending, and a swelling of the ranks of unemployed jobseekers in a weak labor market. Furthermore, these problems—loss of incomes, reductions in remittances, a weakening of the El Salvador economy, and increases in unemployment—will be significantly exacerbated if the US government follows through on the Trump administration’s decision to end TPS status on 4 January 2021 for approximately 200,000 Salvadorans legally residing in the US. Such a reversal of residency status would affect many of the most economically established Salvadorans in the US, undermining their economic standing and ability to support communities, both in El Salvador and in the US.
Who are the deportees?
Little information is collected about the characteristics of deportees returning to El Salvador. Focusing on deportees who were apprehended by US immigration authorities after residing in the country for two years or more, this section presents survey data on respondents’ gender, age, migration activities, education, and work experience in El Salvador. Later sections examine their US work experiences, as well as the areas to which deportees will return and their future migration plans, if any.
The majority—89%—of deportees surveyed are men, a figure that is on par with the 86% reported in US government data (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, 2020). Overall, two-thirds (67%) were aged 26 to 45 (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement no longer releases data on the age of deportees). An additional 21% were between the ages of 18 and 25, while 12% were older than 46. The average age of respondents was 35 (Table 1).
Gender and age groups of respondents.
The educational attainment levels of the deportees surveyed appear to be higher than those of the general population of El Salvador. Following the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords, net school-enrollment rates increased rapidly, and El Salvador now has one of the highest enrollment rates in Central America, though for secondary school the rate is only around 60% (Education Policy and Data Center, 2012). Furthermore, of those who attend secondary school, just half go on to complete high school. Consequently, there are currently more than 300,000 youth aged 15 to 24 who neither are in school nor in work (USAID, 2019). Average years of schooling are highest in San Salvador department and lowest in the largely rural departments of Morazán, La Unión, and Cabañas (Education Policy and Data Center, 2012).
One in five deportees surveyed (20%) had only an elementary school education (Table 2). Slightly more than one-third (35%) had a middle school education and one-third (33%) had completed high school. Five percent had a college education and seven percent reported having had no schooling. Of those with at least some formal education, one in five (20%) obtained their education in the US.
Educational attainment.
Sixty percent of deportees had work experience in El Salvador before migrating to the US. Of these, 34% had been employed in the service sector, 23% had worked in agriculture, 22% had worked in retail and wholesale trade, and 21% had worked in other sectors of the economy.
The vast majority of respondents (91%) indicated that they traveled to the US by land via an irregular migration route. When asked about their migration and resettlement plans, 54% of those who reported they had plans indicated they will remain in El Salvador, 40% will attempt to return to the US, and 7% will seek to migrate to a country other than the US (Table 3). Sixteen percent of respondents either did not know whether they would remain in El Salvador or migrate elsewhere or they declined to respond to the survey question. Men were more inclined to migrate to another country, as were younger respondents (see also Amuedo-Dorantes et al., 2015; Cardoso et al., 2016; Martínez et al., 2018).
Migration and settlement plans by gender.
The job market facing deportees
The previous section noted that slow growth, high levels of informality, and low wages have been enduring features of El Salvador’s economy. Although the official unemployment rate is low (perhaps as low as 4% according to World Bank (2020) estimates), this is a poor measure of labor market vitality because it does not count underemployment (workers who work part-time and temporary jobs but would prefer full-time work) nor does it include discouraged workers who have given up their job-search activities. USAID (2012) estimates that the combined unemployment/underemployment rate is greater than 40%, with men having disproportionately higher rates of unemployment and women having disproportionately higher rates of underemployment. With these caveats in mind, this section provides a more in-depth overview of the country’s labor market and economic structure.
Since at least the early 1990s, the services sector has been responsible for an increasing share of overall employment, while the agricultural sector has seen its share of total employment dwindle (Chart 1). The broad services category, which in Chart 1 includes the growing retail and wholesale trade industries, includes a range of occupations, though it is characterized by a preponderance of low-paying positions.
Employment by sector, 1991–2016.
A closer look at employment change reveals that aggregate levels of employment in the agriculture, manufacturing, and construction sectors were fairly stable between 2000 and 2017 (Chart 2). Where job growth has occurred during this period, it has been concentrated in retail and wholesale trade, accommodation and food services activities, and other service industries (Charts 3 and 4).
Employment change: agriculture, forestry and fishing; manufacturing; and construction, 2000–2017.
Employment change: service sector, 2000–2017.
Employment change: wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles; and transport, store, and communication, 2000–2017.
According to ILO (2017) estimates, informal employment accounted for 70% of total employment and 64% of all non-agricultural employment in 2017. These figures have remained largely unchanged since 2010, indicating that although the Salvadoran economy has experienced modest net job creation over the period, growth in formal employment has not accelerated. The ILO (2018) also estimates that in 2018, more than 36% of employed workers in El Salvador are in vulnerable employment (in other words, they are self-employed, or own-account, workers and their family members). This figure too has remained unchanged over the last five years.
At least two observations can be drawn from these data. First, despite closely following the policy prescriptions advanced by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Inter-American Development Bank, and the United States that are aimed at deregulating the economy and spurring foreign investment, El Salvador’s economy has continued to falter. Job creation, particularly in the formal sector, has failed to keep pace with the growth of labor supply, and the jobs that have been created too often are in low-paying industries and occupations. Second, Salvadorans who have been deported from the United States face an inhospitable job market upon their return to El Salvador, with few sectors experiencing job growth while informality remains widespread. Furthermore, the large number of deportees has strained the capacity of the country’s reintegration services. The small number of workforce development programs that are available operate at very low capacity, leaving most deportees to navigate the job market with little, if any, assistance (Rietig and Villegas, 2015). The geography of migration and return plays a role here as well. “Most Salvadoreans who emigrate have rural roots. When they return, many will face an unpalatable choice between moving to the countryside, where their relatives are, or staying in the cities to seek employment” (The Economist, 2018). Reintegration services in rural areas are virtually nonexistent—and the same is true for living-wage employment opportunities—so many deportees will consider relocating to San Salvador or one of the other major cities were jobs are relatively more plentiful and somewhat better paid. As a result of these conditions, there is a pressing need to reconceive workforce development and economic development interventions. The next section introduces an approach that leverages jobseekers’ training and experience in an effort to improve their employment outcomes.
Assessing the job skills and employment histories of deportees
Traditional approaches to local economic development begin by identifying target industries, subsidizing industrial development with monetary incentives and other inducements, and then training workers for jobs in those industries. For jobseekers, however, this can lead to poor employment outcomes because they may not be able to build on the occupation-specific skills and experience they already have obtained; they may find themselves underemployed in less-skilled positions; and they may have to participate in time-consuming retraining programs rather than rapidly entering employment, earning an income, and further developing the skills they currently possess. Labor force-based development (LFBD) reorients local economic development initiatives toward jobseekers’ existing skill sets (Ranney and Betancur, 1992; see also Theodore and Carlson, 1998). Rather than seeking to attract industry to an area and then retraining jobseekers to meet employers’ needs, LFBD reverses development priorities by targeting industries for which workers’ skills are well suited. Initially developed to assist manufacturing workers and others who were displaced by deindustrialization in the US in the wake of rapid deindustrialization, LFBD directs economic development and workforce development efforts toward the skills and competencies that are already present among the unemployed.
The call for LFBD arises from the observation that development initiatives have too often bypassed the employment needs of unemployed and underemployed jobseekers, thus reducing the efficacy of government investments in economic development. LFBD is based on the notion that the employment, experience and skills of unemployed workers in a particular area of [a] city or region can become a major variable for establishing development priorities for that area. Further, with such priorities set, training programs can be designed that will make the fit between development priorities and resident work force even closer (Ranney and Betancur, 1992: 288).
Given that the work experiences of recent deportees likely differ markedly from those of long-term residents of El Salvador, the orientation of LFBD to capitalize on these skills has the potential to provide national and local governments with a different, and more effective, approach to economic development, especially in areas outside El Salvador’s major cities, where smaller, targeted programs could be designed specifically for the economic incorporation of deportees. This section presents information that could form the basis of such an approach, namely deportees’ employment histories, skills training, and educational attainment in the US prior to their deportation to El Salvador.
Nearly all of the deportees surveyed (96%) were employed in the US at the time they were apprehended by immigration authorities. Deportees previously held a range of jobs, including moderately to highly skilled positions (Table 4), and construction occupations were the most common type of work reported by survey respondents. Among respondents who had been employed fully 60% worked in construction, performing jobs such as cement finisher, roofer, house framer, flooring installer, and painter. The second most common set of occupations related to restaurant work, including chef/cook. Thirteen percent of respondents indicated they held jobs in restaurants. Other top occupations included: maintenance or janitorial-type positions, including working as a welder or doing other kinds of repair work (6%); mechanics (4%); landscapers (4%); and manufacturing occupations (4%). This industry distribution is similar to that of Salvadoran TPS-holders, with construction the largest employing industry followed by restaurants and landscaping services (Warren and Kerwin, 2017).
Primary occupation held in the US.
In addition to their employment in a small cluster of occupations, many deportees have received job-skills training while living in the US. Approximately one-third (32%) reported having obtained specialized training for the occupations they held. Furthermore, for immigrants in certain industries, informal, on-the-job training might be even more significant than training obtained through formal programs. Natashia Iskander (2019) has noted that in contemporary immigration debates in the US, immigrants typically are referred to as being either “skilled” or “unskilled,” blunt categorizations that obscure various competencies and expertise. Likewise, in their study of immigrant workers in the US construction industry, Iskander and Lowe (2010) highlight the tacit skills that workers develop on the job (often through cross-training by other members of their work crew), competencies that belie the simple designation of “unskilled” labor (see also Hagan et al., 2011; Iskander et al., 2013). These studies call into question a bias in prevailing assessments of immigrants’ skills that both undervalues their human capital and diminishes the prospects of skills portability, underestimating the extent to which skills obtained in the US could be applied to industries in El Salvador or other countries (Hagan et al., 2011, 2015).
From a LFBD standpoint, these are crucial observations because they suggest that there are substantial opportunities for deportees to apply the skills they have obtained in the US to industries in El Salvador. The greatest opportunities appear to be in the construction sector, where the largest number of respondents has worked and where some report having received formal training (along with the tacit skills formation identified by Iskander and Lowe). Moreover, a number of survey respondents indicated they have worked in the construction sector in both El Salvador and the US, providing additional evidence of skills portability. One of the problems, however, is that without effective workforce development programs, job matching likely will produce suboptimal outcomes, both for returning migrants and for employers. Jobseekers will not be matched to employers seeking to fill specialized positions and, over time, jobseekers will resort to accepting less-skilled positions, if they are able to find employment at all.
The geography of return
Deportees’ areas of return are geographically dispersed (Table 5 and Map 1). Because of this, workforce development programs and other reintegration services will need to be decentralized across multiple localities. The largest number of respondents indicated that they will be returning to the highly urbanized San Salvador department (15%), followed by the departments of Usulután (12%) and San Miguel (11%). 1 However, approximately 62% of deportees will be returning to other departments, and when area of return was examined at the municipal level, the extent of spatial dispersal was clearly evident. This poses challenges for reintegration programs, both in terms of simultaneously serving relatively concentrated urban populations and reaching highly dispersed rural populations, and in terms of enrolling a sufficient number of returnees for programs to be viable and cost effective. Jobseekers residing in areas far away from the capital likely face the greatest hardships, though even in San Salvador it cannot be said that job creation has occurred at the levels needed for the successful incorporation of the large numbers of unemployed residing there.
Geographic distribution of the department to which survey respondents will return.
El Salvador’s departments.
Recommendations: Labor force-based development
A recent report summarizing the findings of the Regional Migration Study Group—co-chaired by Ernesto Zedillo (former President of Mexico), Eduardo Stein (former Vice President of Guatemala), and Carlos M. Gutierrez (former US Commerce Secretary)—examining human capital development in Mexico and Central America, highlighted the untapped potential of workforce initiatives in the region and their importance for economic development (Papademetriou et al., 2013: 42): If the region’s most promising industries are to remain regionally, and even globally, competitive, and if broad-based economic development is to advance further in Mexico and Central America, governments and employers must learn to see the region’s human capital as a regional resource, and build and harness it to advantage. [. . .]. Accordingly, and working toward common goals, government and industry must invest strategically in building up each country’s education and workforce training infrastructure with the aim of not only making workers more productive in the short term but consistently thinking about skills that will make them more competitive . . . in the longer term.
However, El Salvador, and the other countries of the Northern Triangle, face immediate challenges regarding how to incorporate deported migrants into the communities to which they are returning. There are multiple dimensions to the reintegration of deportees—psychological, societal, familial, and economic—and successful reintegration will require thoughtful attention to each. With regard to the economic aspects of reintegration, policies, and programs that can be implemented in the short-term are urgently needed so that the thousands of deportees arriving in El Salvador each year can be more effectively incorporated into local economies.
One of the primary barriers to incorporation, which has been highlighted in this article and is partially addressed by the Study Group, is the overall weakness of the Salvadoran economy. Slow growth, high levels of informality, and low wages hamper reintegration efforts, and they are key contributing factors spurring future migration. Fundamentally, these are development challenges, and they are symptoms both of a lack of capital investment and employers’ desire to tap domestic labor markets for the low wages that can be paid to El Salvador’s underemployed labor force. Such conditions are a poor foundation for the successful reintegration of deportees.
Government-sponsored workforce development initiatives based on the priorities of LFBD offer an alternative to conventional policymaking and program design, one that could substantially improve the labor market outcomes of deportees. By starting with the skills and experiences of returning workers, rather than attempting to anticipate the needs of the transnational corporations targeted through business subsidies and other incentives, workforce development initiatives could build on the human-capital assets deportees have acquired working in the US and El Salvador, with the hope of finding employment beyond the country’s lowest paid sectors and the informal economy.
To improve employment outcomes, the El Salvador Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare should develop a more robust and worker-centric institutional framework for the labor market that addresses industrial relations systems, employment protections, and workforce development programming. Historically, worker supports and labor rights have played a subordinate role to traditional economic development strategies rooted in attempts to attract foreign-direct investment and adherence to the mandates of multilateral institutions to increase labor market “flexibility” and the liberalization of the economy. But decades of structural adjustment and catering to the expectations of foreign investors have failed to catalyze needed levels of employment growth in El Salvador. And although the government is unlikely to make a sharp turn away from traditional economic development approaches, it is time that labor policy and programming be reoriented toward domestic sectors, unemployed workers, and local economies. The following recommendations call for a series of low-risk, low-cost interventions by government ministries, workforce development providers, and labor organizations that could begin such a reorientation by improving the employability of returning migrants. Taken in unison, these recommendations aim to increase employment opportunities, strengthen the floor under working conditions, and reduce labor market frictions that impede the job placement of deportees.
Promote the development of small businesses or worker cooperatives in the construction industry. Small businesses account for an estimated 70% of job creation in El Salvador (Dirección General de Estadísticas y Censos, 2012). The construction industry, which includes a large number of small enterprises, employed the largest number of deportees surveyed, and the range of jobs reported spans higher- and lower-skilled building trades. Government programs to help deportees establish enterprises in the construction sector could be a way to stimulate business growth while also enabling workers to capitalize on their training and experience (see also Ramos, 2009). Small businesses and worker cooperatives could be created and supported by government workforce-development initiatives, opening new opportunities for returning construction workers to apply their industry skills and experience in El Salvador.
Design targeted job-placement programs. Employer needs for specialized skills, including those required for certain jobs in maintenance (such as welder) and construction (such as plumber), could be filled through job-placement programs for deported migrants. Skills would need to be assessed at the point of return, and referrals could be made to employers that are trying to fill vacancies in skilled positions. Ultimately, employers would be responsible for certifying skills and issuing offers of employment, but job placement programs operated by government agencies (such as the Salvadoran Vocational Training Institute—INSAFORP), community organizations, or labor unions could facilitate the matching of jobseekers and employers. The government has been making job-search databases available to returning migrants, and this is an important first step. But jobseekers need more directed assistance, which would include greater employer outreach by workforce development providers and ensuring that job-vacancy data are accurate and up to date.
Enforce labor standards. Strong provisions for government enforcement of labor standards must be a core component of any modernized economic development framework. Strong and closely monitored labor standards are required so that workers’ wellbeing is safeguarded and so that job creation can help achieve poverty-alleviation goals (see Schrank, 2014). In the absence of meaningful labor-standards enforcement, there is a danger that the gains from trade, as well as from foreign-direct investment more generally, will not flow to the workforce or to the communities in which workers reside. A US Department of State (2018: 22) report concluded that the resources allocated by the Salvadoran government to conduct workplace inspections are “inadequate” and its remedies are “ineffective”. Furthermore, the Salvadoran “government did not effectively enforce the laws on freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining,” which are key reasons why only approximately 5% of workers in El Salvador are covered by a collective bargaining agreement. The inadequacy of government labor-standards enforcement combined with weaknesses in the industrial relations system that inhibit the ability of trade unions to monitor workplace conditions and remedy problems through collective bargaining, undermines the extent to which economic development initiatives can reduce poverty.
Strengthen health and safety training. Throughout El Salvador, training and awareness of health and safety on the job is woefully inadequate. As a result, workers are unnecessarily exposed to workplace hazards, and they rarely are provided needed personal protective equipment. Through the delivery of workplace safety training, worker organizations and labor unions can play an important role in mitigating the risks currently faced by workers. The government should provide funding to these entities to support the design and delivery of safety training programs across a range of key industries, including agriculture, construction, manufacturing, and care work.
Conduct regular assessments of deportees’ job skills. Ongoing monitoring of deportees’ skills and work experience, places of residence, and employment outcomes upon return to El Salvador is needed so that workforce development providers and economic development practitioners can tailor programs to the needs of deportees. Periodic surveys by the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare can fulfill this purpose by providing up-to-date information on jobseekers’ employment assets and needs, as well as on where in the country deportees are returning. The information collected from surveys of deportees could inform the design of job-placement programs and other efforts to match jobseekers and employers.
Launch a campaign to reduce the stigmatization of deportees. Salvadorans who have been deported from the US not only face an inhospitable job market upon their return, they also must contend with bearing the mark of being a deportee and all the attendant stigmas this label confers. Many deportees find themselves socially isolated and often wrongfully stigmatized as a “failed migrant”—or even as a criminal because they have been apprehended and returned to El Salvador by US government authorities (Dingeman, 2018; Sarabia, 2018). One consequence of these perceptions is that many deportees face discrimination in the labor market and in Salvadorian society more generally. The government should implement an education campaign aimed at the general public to counteract prevailing erroneous perceptions of deportees. Using public service announcements, mass media reporting, and other modes of information dissemination, this campaign should target misrepresentations of migrants and highlight the important contributions they have made to Salvadoran society.
Without question, El Salvador faces numerous challenges in reincorporating deported migrants into local labor markets. Given the problems of inadequate job creation and widespread informality that have beset the Salvadoran economy for decades, government officials will need to refashion prevailing approaches to local development, even as they help returnees cope with the devastating personal, family, and economic consequences of mass deportations from the US. Fortunately, opportunities exist for assisting the economic reintegration of deportees. As this study has shown, most are returning with skills and substantial experience working in the construction sector, both in the US and in El Salvador. Given that the country currently also is experiencing a shortfall of approximately 360,000 housing units (Sustainable Development Goals Fund, 2017), demand for construction workers would be strong if workforce development programs were retooled to support a nationwide initiative aimed at substantially reducing this housing deficit. A LFBD approach would therefore compliment wider economic development objectives, for the benefit of deportees and the communities to which they will return.
Effective LFBD will require both greater coordination between reintegration services and improved data-collection efforts. Neither, however, poses major implementation barriers. Organizations engaged in workforce development, including INSAFORP, community groups, and labor unions, should formally collaborate, and together they should more deeply engage business associations and private-sector employers to ensure that vocational preparation and job matching are appropriately designed and targeted. Moreover, such efforts must be ongoing so that workforce development programs can be adapted to the changing needs of jobseekers and employers. Periodic monitoring and evaluation will be crucial to ensuring that workforce development programs meet needs as they evolve. By monitoring the skills and work experiences of deportees at the point of return to El Salvador, as well as regularly evaluating the outcomes of job-placement programs, national and local governments can partner with workforce development providers to closely tailor employment services to conditions on both the supply and demand sides of local economies. Through LFBD, supply-side conditions—especially accounting for occupational skills and job experience—would receive far greater attention than they do under conventional approaches to economic development.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
This article would not have been possible without the collaboration and assistance of the El Salvador General Directorate of Immigration (Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería). I thank the members of the survey team for their diligent data-collection efforts: Stephanie Raquel Tejada Chávez, Lourdes Carolina Hernández Del Cid, Daniel Eduardo Ramírez Rossi, Paola Alejandra Cea Tenorio, Rocío Alejandra Lemus Villalta, Víctor Gabriel García Zúniga. Thanks also to Rut González Méndez for her research assistance and for coordinating the data collection. I greatly appreciated the opportunity to present research findings at the Universidad Tecnológica de El Salvador. Finally, thanks to Pablo Alvarado, Jaime Rivas Castillo, Liduvina Magarin, Amparo Marroquín Parducci for their comments on earlier drafts of this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation.
