Los Angeles — One construction site in Los Angeles has just about everything needed to build a traditional family home. Everything, that is, except enough workers.
“We have probably three people on site, four people on site, and normally, we’d have about double, about eight to 10 people,” general contractor Jason Pietruszka told CBS News. “They’re hiding. People aren’t will to coming to work.”
Pietruszka said he only hires builders here in the country legally, but that he also relies on companies that employ highly skilled, undocumented labor. Many of those workers are now no-shows because they are fearful of the ramped-up Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
“If a company has five trucks going out and doing work every single day, and there’s two guys per truck, and half their crew doesn’t want to come, that’s literally three jobs, or two jobs, that can’t be performed,” Pietruszka explained.
The labor shortage comes at a time when more than 12,000 homes destroyed by the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles County earlier this year need to be rebuilt.
About 41% of construction workers in California are foreign-born, according to a 2023 analysis from the National Association of Home Builders, a trade group for the housing construction industry.
A report in March from the UCLA Anderson Forecast found that a rise in “deportations will deplete the construction workforce” statewide.
“For single-family and smaller (non-high rise) multi-family development, the loss of workers installing drywall, flooring, roofing and finishing will directly diminish the level of production,” the report found.
Pietruszka said the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is already causing longer construction delays and greater competition for fewer crews.
“When you find the people who are willing to do the job, they want probably double the hourly rate,” Pietruszka said. “…That means the consumer is paying more.”
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