While some contractors dismiss the plan as political rhetoric, many say they can’t afford to lose more people from an aging, immigrant-dependent workforce still short of nearly 400,000 people.

While some contractors dismiss the plan as political rhetoric, many say they can’t afford to lose more people from an aging, immigrant-dependent workforce still short of nearly 400,000 people.

Both presidential candidates promise to build more homes. One promises to deport hundreds of thousands of people who build them.

Former President Donald Trump’s pledge to “launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” would hamstring construction firms already facing labor shortages and push record home prices higher, say industry leaders, contractors and economists.

“It would be detrimental to the construction industry and our labor supply and exacerbate our housing affordability problems,” said Jim Tobin, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders. The trade group considers foreign-born workers, regardless of legal status, “a vital and flexible source of labor” to builders, estimating they fill 30% of trade jobs like carpentry, plastering, masonry and electrical roles.

  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
    42·
    11 days ago

    It was a bit different. Brexit wasn’t hiring workers for $14/hour because legal residents would be doing the job for $25/hour.

    Besides that, we don’t need more houses being built so much as we need a hard cap on any entity owning more than a few rental houses.

    • njm1314@lemmy.world
      2·
      11 days ago

      Oh we absolutely need more houses being built. That’s not even a question. Sure it would help to also have controls for the amount of properties one entity can hold, but doing that without building more houses would in no way solve the problem

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
        43·
        10 days ago

        There’s currently 15,000,000 houses in the US that aren’t even being lived in right now. We in no way have to increase the production rate of building more houses in order to house everyone.

        • njm1314@lemmy.world
          71·
          10 days ago

          And are all those houses in areas where there’s enough jobs to support the people living in them? Are all of those houses in livable condition? Further than that, what makes you think that Society needs one house to one person? If you don’t have a surplus of houses you don’t have the ability to move from one city to the next to pursue new opportunities. You always need a large surplus of houses so that Mobility is possible. So I think you’ll find that when you look a little closer at that number it’s not quite as advantageous as you think.

    • chaosCruiser@futurology.todayEnglish
      2·
      10 days ago

      At the moment, they have trouble filling positions in restaurants and hospitals, because locals aren’t interested in working very hard for hardly any money. Also, all the Polish lorry drivers would need to be replaced by local UK residents, which appears to be harder than expected. (insert pikachu meme here)

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
        2·
        10 days ago

        So people don’t want to work for a small amount of money, and brexit is being blamed? Because that just sounds like poor people were being taken advantage out out of desperation for a job.

          • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
            2·
            10 days ago

            The fix to the underlying problem is pay enough money to make people want the job.

            You want to be a janitor? “No” You want to be a janitor for $40/hr? “Hell yeah”