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.
Why not pay builders a fair wage then?
It’s certainly not labour costs driving up house prices.
Not always about the wage. You could pay 200k per year and still have trouble finding people willing to climb up on a roof day in and day out.
Especially if they find out that roofer is the fourth-most dangerous job in the U.S.
https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-united-states
Incidentally, police officer is ranked at 22. Well below garbage collectors (5), delivery drivers (7), or agricultural workers (11).
I shudder at the thought of driving for work. It’s already so hard to keep up spatial awareness of the crazy drivers for an hour or less. I cannot imagine 8 hours of that.
Try 11
There must be a good reason why why family quit 11! I’ll trust their judgement on this one.
And on top of all of that, you usually have to provide your own vehicle. Which means you basically drive it to death much earlier than the average lifespan of the car. If we’re talking something like Uber Eats, they don’t even cover your gas.
I cannot imagine it be a worthwhile investment. The only people I know who do Uber are retired and do it out of boredom. Fortunately, I don’t know a single soul who does it for a job (without having another job to do as well).
I know I guy who does Door Dash. He says it let’s him be his own boss where he can work as much or as little as he wants to. And he said he got tired of dealing with the new generation of workers at his old job.
If it works for you, that’s great. But it’s like @[email protected] said, there’s so many cons to work for Uber.
That’s what an actual Door Dash driver has told me, and I would think he would be aware of the downsides of the business. He has told me his war stories and despite all of the cons he thinks it is better for him then working in his old job sector. It seems pretty telling. edit: typos
I don’t know anyone lately, but I know plenty of people who did it when they were younger. Including a trandgender friend who did it for maybe 20 years. I’m guessing she doesn’t have a lot of job opportunities here in Indiana. She’s such an awesome person too.
Then the wages are still too low…
It really is not that simple.
It really IS that simple. You tell some schmuck off the street “I will pay you $300K a year to climb on roofs and nail down shingles all day.”, you really think they’ll say no? I don’t. Same with retail, same with food service, same with sales, painting, engineering, and more.
Historically underpaying job markets aren’t experiencing a “”““labor shortage””“” from lack of openings or bad press, they’re just finally realizing that paying people like shit then treating them poorly isn’t going to get them more workers.
They will say no especially when they hear his dangerous it is. My uncle fell off the roof and ended up with a hernia. It took forever to do the surgery to fix it. And really, 300k? How expensive do you think that’s going to make a house? As much as I hate the idea there’s only so much that you can charge for something. We’d have to somehow go after the corporation for unprecedented profit in addition to raising wages.
They’ll say yes. They won’t last long. The churn will be great and then there will be shortage. It really isn’t as simple as pay.
And by that logic no country in the world would have soldiers either.
People have been doing dangerous jobs for pay since the existence of pay. If the pay is right someone will perform your dangerous job. If the payout isn’t worth the risk then they won’t. It’s the free market in action.
The free market currently says that a new home is worth X dollars because of what people are willing to pay vs. the labor going into it. Materials are cheap compared to the work. The rates laborers get paid stem from the free market equilibrium on that. Labor rates go up, house prices go up, home ownership goes down. Builders in the US get about 15% margin on building and selling new homes. You have maybe 10% of wiggle room before the profit in building homes is not worth the effort. So laborers could get paid…10% more at best before home prices go up. That’s not going to attract many more people to offset immigrant labor demand.
The people who have to work at low wages bc of legal and social suppression are effecting the market equalibrum. Labor costs are just as real a factor in the market as anything.
I have known enough growers and builders that no matter the pay, people cannot simply will themselves able to do that kind of work. It’s just.Not.That.Simple.
But yet crops still get planted and harvested and buildings still get built.
So your solution is an impoverished underclass that cannot escape work no one will do, you are sick.
Not at all.
The way I see it, there’s two options:
Pay people more. 300k, 400k, 500k, whatever it takes. Surely there’s a number that people would feel is worth the risk. The obvious downside is that increases the cost of construction.
Make the process of roofing safer - invent new safety gear or safety practices, automation equipment that can be operated from the ground, introduce legislation that encourages those practices or subsidizes the new equipment. The obvious downside is this requires upfront investment and cooperation between government and industry.
Either way, the current practice of “throw cheap immigrant labor at it until it goes away” is not tenable.
It’s not just “cheap” immigrant labor. Those laborers bring ability that you have a very hard time finding here.
If we ever have a Chernobyl or a Fukushima, it’ll be prisoners and undocumented immigrants cleaning it up.
99% of people just don’t want to do the work it’s not a matter of wage and most of the time you get twice the worker when you hire Mexicans just speaking from experience
I guarantee you more people would find themselves wanting to do the work if it paid more.
The great pay exists in some construction sectors. State and Federal work have “wage rates” where laborers, carpenters, operators etc. have a mandatory wage and benefits. On a job I am currently on the laborers are earning $64/hr and our company is having a problem with staffing. Plenty of people want the pay, but as mentioned before, it is really tough work, and the deadlines mean that you can’t fuck the dog. That being said, this work is limited to citizens and monitored closely. I know it is cliche to say “no one wants to work anymore” but as a 30 year old I am one of very few young people I work with. I get it, the work is brutal and you have no energy to have a work life balance at the end of the day.
You see that none of that is a good thing right?
I don’t want to work a job that destroys my work life balance for any pay. Doesn’t matter how much. Nobody should have to give up their life for money.
Young people are more likely to want to take care of themselves and not have the toxic mindset you and I were brought up with. They aren’t just taking it on the chin, or putting in their time, or whatever bullshit platitudes my generation and older like to sling at young workers or those not willing to eat shit for peanuts.
You are just perpetuating that toxic mindset, in servitude of the moneyed class.
I’m not saying it’s a good thing. And it’s easy to say no one should work that hard. I work building emergency bridges on FEMA projects. I assure you it is work worth doing. I personally don’t think I have a toxic mindset about the grind. It’s hard work with good pay, and I find it satisfying. I have spoken to many of my friends who are looking to make more money, and none of them have wanted to give construction a shot. Although I am a woman and therefore most of my friends are women. I understand their aversion to working in a potentially toxic environment. I don’t begrudge them or think they should work as much as I do.
I was responding to the original comment to demonstrate that higher pay exists in construction. It is mostly private construction that does not pay well and keeps the profits solely in the owners pockets.
Thank you for what you do, it’s absolutely necessary and we need people like you. I wouldn’t for a moment say it’s not worth doing.
I don’t blame them for not wanting to do construction. I ran fiber optic cable on poles, underground, into buildings for a long time. Not quite construction, but also not easy work. Pay was terrible, I was young, and they took advantage of me. for almost 10 years. I’ve roofed, I’ve framed, I’ve been a programmer, I’ve been a network engineer. ALL of those jobs were basically the same in that regard, decent pay sure… But the hours required, the recovery I had to go through. Nothing is worth that. I’m sad that I took this long to figure that out, I missed a lot of good times with my kiddo. I can never get that back.
That’s the same thing that’s happening to all of us at this point. There’s NO reason there isn’t enough money in the pipeline to get things built that need to be built, paying people a wage that they can live on, and without eating nearly all of their time ‘off’ work. If you have to take so much time to recover that you feel like it eats into your personal job, your work life balance is way out of wack.
I don’t want to sound like I think your career isn’t valid, or isn’t important. Every single person that’s a part of making our lives work deserves to get paid well. No matter their job. There are so many resources available to the world we could all have better lives, but then a small group of slime would have fewer 0’s in their bank account. Otherwise, they wouldn’t even notice.
To speak to the other side, there are a number of people that thrive in that environment. My dad was one of them. He’s at the end of his life, dying of Parkinson’s and now seeing the relationship I have with my kiddo. I can see the pain in his face. He wants to have had that with me, but decided that money was more important. He’s going to die a multi millionaire, I hope those dollars comfort him.
That took a turn, I’m sorry. But it feels good to get out so I’m leaving it.
I know several people in the same situation as your dad. The whole industry is a mess, and the older generations certainly glorify working through important milestones just to brag about providing for their family. For the most part, the younger “kids” in the industry are a lot more aware of family dynamics and the importance of relationships over bank account balances. I think we will have to reach a breaking point for things to truly change, and who knows what that will mean for the economy and vital infrastructure that needs to be maintained. I’m an optimist, so I assume we could find a better solution that suits more people.
The work they do fucking sucks regardless of the pay.