Hiring Workers

When it came to hiring workers for the building of the railroad, it wasn’t too easy of a job. There were around 4,000 job openings for workers on the railroad. Out of that 4,000, there was only about 800 of those positions filled at one time. A great majority of the workers were Irish because there were so many Irishmen immigrating to the States. The Chinese were also immigrating to America because they heard of the gold that was found. Men were skeptical when hiring the Chinese because they knew that they were so unreliable.  The Irish were starting to complain about their wages, so recruiters started hiring the Chinese. They were noticing that hiring the Chinese put the Irish back in their place because they were scared of the Chinese taking over the jobs. The Chinese actually started showing more skill in their work and were working much better and strong than the Irish. Crocker, a contractor of the railroad, really liked the Chinese work ethic so he started advertising in China about the railroad work overseas. The Chinese were just a better choice for the contractors to hire because not only were they better workers, but they were paid less. Hiring workers was all about getting the best work for the cheapest labor hours, and in the end, it seemed to be the Chinese that accomplished this.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tcrr-cprr/