During the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown on Charlotte and Raleigh last week, there was an unexpected twist — in addition to the stories about criminal aliens being apprehended and schools seeing absenteeism among segments of the student body, there were many anecdotes (published and unpublished) about work coming to a stop at construction sites and other labor-heavy projects.
Dave Simpson, president and CEO of Carolinas Associated General Contractors, told Carolina Journal that “Companies are reporting absences, which is concerning because there is a lot of work to be done.”
At one site, the contractor apologized that the project would be delayed for two weeks “due to ICE.” Those frustrated by the delay snapped back that there hasn’t been any recent winter storms, before being informed of the immigration raids.
A high-rise building in Raleigh’s popular North Hills area and even Raleigh’s new City Hall were among the projects affected.
NC Newsline interviewed some of the few workers who showed up to the City Hall project out of the usual 200.
“There’s a lot that can’t be done. I mean, you have framing, electrical, you have guys working painting, you know, precast. There’s a lot of trades that are not here because of that situation [the raids],” said one of the workers. “They’re very helpful. They make up half of our workforce. This is a dying trade.”
As of August 2025, the US Chamber of Commerce ranks North Carolina’s labor shortage as “severe,” with only 76 available workers for every 100 open jobs. Companies are often happy just to outcompete their rivals and get a position filled, even if the worker wouldn’t be their first pick in a market with more workers.
And because of this, these in-demand workers can afford to demand higher wages and to accept only the most attractive positions. Unfortunately, jobs like agriculture, construction labor, and manufacturing are not high on the list for those entering today’s job market.
A study by the John Locke Foundation this year, “Harvest on Hold,” found that “North Carolina’s agricultural sector faces a critical labor shortage driven by demographic shifts, declining interest in farm work among domestic workers, and regulatory challenges associated with hiring foreign labor.”
In construction, the UNC School of Public Policy, in an analysis of all 100 counties, found “construction labor shortages emerged as a persistent issue across communities in North Carolina.”
“Homebuilders and construction professionals frequently cite labor shortages as a factor contributing to longer project timelines and rising costs,” said Michael Welker, director of Policy and Research Partnerships for ncIMPACT.
And in manufacturing, the NC Department of Commerce released an analysis this month that manufacturing — like agriculture and construction — was aging more quickly than other sectors.
The fact is, these labor-intensive jobs are not attracting young workers. A Harris Poll this August found GenZ workers were the least likely to view work in the trades to be a good career path, believing that jobs requiring a four-year college degree paid better (even though this isn’t necessarily the case) and were more flexible. A similar result was found by Soter Analytics on GenZ attitudes to manufacturing, with only 14% saying they would consider these jobs — citing safety, a lack of flexible hours, and pay as negative associations.
So, until the autonomous robot laborers are ready to take over these jobs, much of the labor we rely on to have food, housing, and other basic services will come from immigrants. An even more uncomfortable fact is that many of these immigrants are in the country illegally. In North Carolina, if your business has 25 or more employees, you are required to use the e-verify system. But what frequently happens on major projects is a general contractor, with a legal labor force, will subcontract out for all the trades (plumbing, masonry, electric, etc). And many of these subcontractors will be conveniently below the 25-employee threshold.
I frequently see statements pushing back on these facts, saying things like, “Well we just have to get the teenagers off the couches. It’d be good for them to pick the vegetables and swing the hammers,” or, “It’s our labor participation rate. If we can get all those mooching off the system off the couches and into the factories, we could fill all these jobs again.”
If you can find a way to do that, I’m all for it. But even if there were a successful “everyone off the couches and back to work” initiative, the fact would remain that most Americans, according to all polling data, prefer sitting in climate-controlled offices (or working remotely from home) clicking around on a computer. The past couple generations of Americans also decided to have far fewer children than prior generations, leading to a below-replacement birth rate and a much smaller ratio of those entering the workforce than those leaving it.
So, the brute fact is, we need immigrants to do these jobs. In terms of immigration policy, it doesn’t mean we have to grant them all citizenship, but the fact we currently rely on them is as undeniable as the empty construction sites across Raleigh last week.
By our electoral and market choices, Americans are signaling that we want three things at the same time: jobs in comfortable offices, products made in America, and an end to large-scale immigration. In reality (until the robots arrive), we probably have to pick two.