The way it works is you have a subcontractor pay an immigrant under the table and get it done.

The US clamped down on Mexican border crossings. Guess what? There’s no labor. Who would have thunk it.

This along with the cyclical nature of the housing industry are definite negatives for carpentry as a long-term career for citizens in the US. The fact that the article doesn’t mention the under the table nature of illegal immigrant work crews and how that puts downward pressure on wage rates is a blatant omission.

>The US clamped down on Mexican border crossings.

Now, the border is more porous than ever. There's plenty of labor -- go to any home improvement store parking lot. And that's just the illegal labor -- boost wages and you could recapture legal workers.

But for now, go to any construction site in California, and you'll hear only Spanish spoken between the carpenters, roofers, etc. and their supervision.

Those people were around in 2020 (outside Home Depot here in Seattle) but are all gone now. I guess they are all just really busy rather than being deported or something.

I wouldn’t assume all or even most labor on constructions sites are illegal immigrants just because they speak Spanish, if only because the USA has a lot of legal first-gen Hispanic immigrants.

So the angry man on the radio says.

Back here on earth, roofers are making $36/hr. My brother’s restaurant is paying $28-32/hr for line cooks and dishwashers.

Housing starts are very cyclical, they absolutely can and do stop building things when it stops being economically favorable to do so. This is one of the reasons we have so few carpenters. It’s a boom and bust industry.