Which States Are Most Reliant on Immigrant Construction Workers?

At almost a quarter of the workers in the construction industry and 30 percent of the trades, immigrant construction workers have become a pillar of the building industry. Large states such as California and Texas are the most reliant on foreign-born labor, but other states are increasingly employing immigrant workers. A majority of immigrant workers come from the Americas. But some states in the Northeast and Illinois have large populations of European workers, and Hawaii is home to a sizable Asian immigrant labor force. Find out how your state stacks up to the others when it comes to its immigrant workforce.

Earlier this month, we published a post highlighting a high and rising reliance of construction on immigrant workers. Foreign-born workers now account for almost a quarter of workers in the construction industry, and close to 30% of construction tradesmen. In some states, reliance on foreign-born labor is even more pronounced. Immigrants comprise close to 40% of the construction workforce in California and Texas. In Florida, New Jersey and New York, close to 37% of the construction labor force is foreign-born and in Nevada, one out of three construction industry workers come from abroad.

Traditionally, construction immigrants are concentrated in a few populous states, with more than half of all immigrant construction workers (56%) residing in California, Texas, Florida, and New York. These are not only the most populous states in the U.S. (together accounting for nearly a third of the country’s population), they are also particularly reliant on foreign-born construction labor, as more than a third of the construction industry workforce in these states comes from abroad.

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