No Jobs? These Mexican Immigrants Made Their Own

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PEiLfg-lDg

"Jobs" is the word on the tip of everyone's tongue right now, whether in Congress, around Midwest dinner tables, or at the Occupy Wall Street protests. Specifically, the lack of them. There are now about seven applicants for every job available, a steep jump from when it was about two-to-one in the early aughts. That much competition requires a lot of work to stand out, but even the most remarkable job candidates are sometimes passed over in this economy. That's when some enterprising people decide to build their own path.

Meet the women of the Apple Eco-friendly Cleaning Cooperative. Much like the co-op cleaning services GOOD covered earlier this week, Apple is a collective of five Mexican women living in New York City who got tired of working odd gigs and wanted more control of their careers. After meeting at a Brooklyn day laborer hiring site, where they would compete for cleaning jobs with dozens of other women, the quintet decided go into business for themselves, and formed an LLC. They also began making their own cleaning products at home out of natural ingredients. The result is a less toxic home for their growing roster of clients and a safer cleaning day for the women themselves, who would sometimes get headaches from working for hours amid traditional chemical cleansers.

In case you're wondering about the women's immigration status, it's worth noting that starting an LLC in the United States is pretty simple, legal immigrant or not. That said, maintaining said business when it comes to tax time would be tremendously difficult for someone without a valid Social Security Number, meaning it's probably safe to assume the women at Apple are on the up-and-up. Just to be sure, we've reached out to the group to ask, and we'll update this post if and when they answer. In the meantime, regardless of how they got to America, it looks as if the American dream is now well within their reach.