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SoCal Day Laborers Suffer From Slumping Economy

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Mar 17, 2008 9:17 am US/Pacific

SoCal Day Laborers Suffer From Slumping Economy

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) ― It's tough out there for day laborers as jobs dwindle with the slumping economy.

The workers outside a Home Depot in north San Bernardino say fewer contractors and homeowners have been driving up looking for gardeners, plumbers, painters and carpenters.

Salvadoran illegal immigrant Juan Rosales says he's lucky now to earn $150 a week doing construction work, about half what he was making.

Mexico immigrant Roberto Panuco, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, says, "We're becoming desperate."

He's traveled back to his hometown in northern Mexico to do some farming a few months a year because of the grim job situation in this country. But he says the U.S. is now "the same as Mexico, as far as jobs are concerned."

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