PDF: Report on 2009 remittancesREMITTANCES DECREASEFrom 2008 to 2009:* Latin America and the Caribbean: $69.2 billion to $58.8 billion* Mexico: $25.1 million to $21.1 billion* Guatemala: $4.3 million to $3.9 billion* El Salvador: $3.8 million to $3.5 billion* Honduras: $2.7 million to $2.5 billionSource: Multilateral Investment Fund
Although money sent by immigrants to their families back home began to stabilize this year after a 15 percent drop in 2009, many area residents report tough economic times.
“The (economic) situation is pretty bad,” Jorge Hernandez said in Spanish, while having lunch at Tienda Maya off Central Avenue. “Work pay is a lot lower than before.”
Mr. Hernandez and his co-worker Arandy Perebal, both construction workers from Guatemala, said they sent their families back home close to $1,800 a month three years ago, but now they say they are lucky if they can send $300.
Remittances, or money transfers, from Latin American and Caribbean migrants to their families had increased 17 percent on average every year since 2000, the earliest data available, according to the Multilateral Investment Fund, which is administered by the Inter-American Development Bank.
Remittances started to slow in 2006 and diminished considerably in 2008, according to a report from the fund.
The main reason for the decrease stems from the effects of the crisis on the labor market for immigrants in host countries, the report finds, and Mexico was hit especially hard because the majority of its immigrants live in the United States.
In Chattanooga, the biggest decrease happened after the immigration raid at the Pilgrim’s Pride chicken processing plant in April 2008, said Pascual Pedro, owner of Tienda Maya, which offers a money transfer service.
“Before the raid, people were still sending $1,500, $1,800 per month,” he said in Spanish. “Now people send $300, $400.”
People cite the lack of employment as the main reason for not being able to send more money home, he said.
“Those who are working only work three, four days a week. They just work to survive,” added Mr. Pedro, a Guatemala native who opened the store seven years ago.
Several blocks west, Manuel Fajardo, who works at Carniceria Loa at the intersection of Main and Broad streets, said money transfers have decreased about 50 percent at the store.
“It’s been about two years since we started to notice a decrease,” he said, “and it doesn’t seem things are getting better this year.”
The majority of Hispanic immigrants in the area work in construction or manufacturing jobs, two segments hard hit by the recession.
But the Multilateral Investment Fund’s report found that remittances as a whole started to stabilize at the end of 2009, just as unemployment rates in the United States started to improve.
“Over time, as the economy improves remittances rebound as well,” said Gregory Watson, a remittance specialist with the Multilateral Investment Fund, which started tracking remittances in 2000.
“The general trend is a stabilization to a slight growth by the end of the year,” he added.