Construction, Hospitality Sectors Reporting Workforce Shortages in Texas

Meredith Hoffman reports for the Associated Press from Texas on the combined impact of the Trump Administration's immigration crackdown and the anti-sanctuary cities law approved by the State Legislature in May.

Hoffman includes the construction industry as one of the sectors of the economy most impacted by the changes in immigration policy. Workers have been harder to come by as illegal immigrants have fled the state in the face of stories about the federal immigration crackdown. One source in the story says Americans don't last a day doing the drywall installation he used to hire illegal immigrants to do (that statement echoes the sentiment in a satirical opinion piece recently written by Bret Stephens for The New York Times).

For the record, Hoffman explains that demographic and economic experts say it's still too early to quantify the effect of workforce shortages due to immigration fears. Anecdotal evidence, however, is not in short supply.