Immigration sweeps are making construction labor shortage worse. Could Gen Z help fill the gap?

Stepped-up immigration sweeps across the country are causing some construction workers to avoid job sites. That’s making a years-long labor shortage in the industry even worse.

“Any impact that would take away workers right now of course continues to exacerbate the problem that we're experiencing already,” said Peter Tateishi, CEO of Associated General Contractors of California.

The organization even came across companies who are having to pause work due to uncertainty about the labor market and tariffs.

It means the construction industry will have to find creative ways to make up for these labor shortages, says Tateishi. That includes bringing in more women as currently fewer than one in five construction workers is female.

"We're not going to solve our workforce problems when nearly half the population is not ... feeling welcomed or like they belong [in] construction careers," he said.

But it also means leaning on the work his group already is doing in trying to reach a new potential workforce: teens.

Job fairs and visits to middle and high schools

Tateishi’s organization oversees an outreach program called Build California. It’s already reached more than 50,000 teens in the past year through job fairs and visits to middle schools and high schools.

While there is a big obstacle to overcome — a common belief that a construction job is a job of last resort — he has found that youth want good job choices outside the college path.

Labor shortages contributed to construction job losses in the Inland Empire and the L.A., Glendale, Long Beach areas.

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Courtesy Associated General Contractors of California

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“There are some groups that are calling [Gen Z] the toolbelt generation, where they're looking at options beyond college to find meaningful careers that will also provide great qualities of life,” Tateishi said.

One of the challenges, he said, is that it’s difficult for teens to get started on a construction career pathway while in school because public education is focused on pathways that lead to college.

But that outreach still may not be enough to close the construction labor gap significantly, he said, because California’s home and infrastructure construction needs to continue to grow.

There’s a lot at stake. Civil construction, which includes infrastructure like roads and bridges, is projected to see the strongest growth in the state.