American cities building the most homes also rely most on immigrant construction workers

"The American homebuilding industry relies heavily on immigrant workers. That's especially true in the cities that build and remodel the most homes, according to new research from Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies. In the seven metro areas that issued at least 150,000 residential building permits between 2019 and 2023, an average of 54% of construction trades workers were foreign-born, the Harvard report found."

"The construction industry faces a nationwide worker shortage in the hundreds of thousands. Given its reliance on foreign-born workers, President Donald Trump's mass deportations and restrictions on immigration threaten to deepen the worker shortfall, said Anirban Basu, the chief economist at Associated Builders and Contractors, a trade group that endorsed Trump in 2024."

""These places that are most reliant on immigrant labor are going to feel those effects most acutely, and may then have a hampered ability to respond to housing supply and demand needs," said Riordan Frost, a senior research analyst at the Harvard Center and the author of the report. Metros that build fewer homes tend to have far fewer immigrants as a share of their construction workforce. In metros that granted between 75,000 and 149,999 permits, an average of 40% of the workers were foreign-born."

The American homebuilding industry depends heavily on immigrant construction workers, with the highest-building metropolitan areas showing the largest shares. In seven metros issuing at least 150,000 residential permits from 2019 to 2023, an average of 54% of construction trades workers were foreign-born, and several major metros exceeded 60%. A nationwide construction worker shortage totals in the hundreds of thousands. Mass deportations and tighter immigration rules risk deepening that shortfall, raising labor costs and causing delays. The most dynamic housing markets that rely on immigrant labor will likely face the sharpest increases in construction costs and constrained ability to meet housing supply needs.

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