REI Colloquium: The Manufacturing of Job Displacement

In The Manufacturing of Job Displacement: How Racial Capitalism Drives Immigrant and Gender Inequality in the Labor Market (NYU Press, 2024), Dr. Laura López-Sanders investigates the structural mechanisms by which employers shape labor market inequalities through practices of “racialized orchestrated displacement.” Drawing on nearly two years of participant observation as both a laborer and supervisor, as well as in-depth interviews, Dr. López-Sanders offers a nuanced analysis of how employers in low-turnover industries strategically manage workforce demographics through selective hiring and retention practices, often implemented via subcontractors or employment agencies. This process systematically replaces native-born workers with more vulnerable immigrant labor, disproportionately impacting undocumented immigrant women and men with criminal records.

Dr. Laura López-Sanders argues that this racialized and gendered displacement is deliberately engineered: employers exploit the legal and economic precarity of undocumented Latinx workers to impose unattainable standards that push native-born, particularly Black, employees out of their jobs. This dynamic exemplifies racial capitalism, where racial and legal hierarchies serve as critical tools in maximizing profit and maintaining power.

By focusing on these structural manipulations, the book challenges traditional explanations of labor segmentation that emphasize social networks, labor organizing, or “race-neutral” hiring practices, proposing instead that employer-driven strategies and embedded hierarchies are central to shaping job inequality. In shifting the focus from individual or cultural explanations to the deliberate agency of employers within racial capitalism, The Manufacturing of Job Displacement offers a structural perspective that illuminates how race, gender, and immigration status intersect to sustain inequality in contemporary labor markets. This research invites reflection on the deep-rooted structural forces and hierarchies that continue to shape labor market outcomes today, moving beyond binary narratives of “competition” to reveal the complex, orchestrated processes that underlie labor inequalities.

This is an accessible event. If you are a disabled person and need reasonable accommodations to participate they will be provided. For more information, and to make a request, please contact Ezra Bristow at [email protected]

Host or Publisher Institute of Governmental Studies