A recent profile in the Washington Post explores this issue as Floyd?EUR??,,????'???s experience represents it. Here is Floyd?EUR??,,????'???s story as told to the Post.

Since the start of his company, Green Forever Landscaping, in the D.C. region in 1989 there has been a wave in immigration- between 1990 and 2000, the region?EUR??,,????'???s foreign-born population increased by 71 percent. Today, immigrants comprise approximately 70 percent of the workers in the landscaping industry, which had been previously employed by many African Americans.

Floyd?EUR??,,????'???s experience as a landscape contractor is very representative of this changing racial landscape. In the early 1990s, Floyd had fewer than a dozen employees, all of them black. Today, all of Floyd?EUR??,,????'???s employees, 20 workers from El Salvador in the winter and 40 in the summer, are all immigrants, save two black women who work in the office.

Many economists argue that black workers are more vulnerable to the competition for jobs posed by immigrants as blacks are still disproportionately employed in low-skilled jobs.

Floyd describes becoming frustrated at the fact that the black workers or college students he hired in the early 90s would often leave after a few months. That turnover is typical of the low-skilled labor pool, and back then he paid little over minimum wage with no health benefits. As immigrants cycled in, the others cycled out. Today, Floyd says that black workers rarely even apply. Floyd now hires from a network of immigrants and the relatives and friends that they refer. (The immigrants provide Social Security numbers, but Floyd acknowledges that he may have unknowingly hired illegal workers.)

Floyd says that the unskilled labor positions in the United States pay up to 10 times what many immigrants would receive for the same work in their home countries.

Nikita Floyd relies heavily on his foreman, Santos Medrano, who fled from El Salvador to the U.S. in 1989 during a civil war. Madrano was immediately made head foreman when he was in hired in 1995 because he was the only one of the crew who could speak fluent English. Today, he drives a company pick-up truck and uses a company cell phone to translate between Floyd and the Spanish-speaking employees. Even when he was home with the flu, Floyd called him to translate to the workers.

This year, Floyd plans to hire a salaried operations manager. “Santos can’t do it,” Floyd said, due to his lack of education. “Maybe his son could.” Floyd said he’ll pick “the best person” for the job. “I would love to hire an African American.?EUR??,,????'??