Invisible hands

America’s guest workers are vulnerable but their lot may be slowly improving

AS YOU crest a rise on Mississippi’s Highway 63, just north of Pascagoula and the Gulf coast, the vista unfolds. A calm brown waterway flows beneath the bridge, interlaced with palm-treed fingers of land; a chaos of water towers, cranes and derricks is revealed in the distance. The near view gives the region its charm; the distant one sustains it. The oil industry and shipbuilding both thrive along the coast. But the population has waned, displaced by hurricanes, so companies must look elsewhere for their workers. The results are not always happy ones.
http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=894664&story_id=15911296

[Posted by: Austin Houlgate]