Although, fortunately, the Labor Department’s inscrutable monthly jobs report isn’t likely to be published Oct. 3 due to the government shutdown, the private-sector employment report for September, of the ADP payrolls firm, showed a further decline in employment nationally, −32,000 jobs. Particularly notable was the reported −5,000 in private-sector construction employment, since reports are appearing of growing shortages of construction workers, without which data centers cannot be built, without which AI cannot advance, without which world domination escapes the United States.… The problem is described as a lack of particularly skilled construction tradesmen—but the fact is that construction workers of all kinds are being deported or staying away from jobs out of fear of deportation. In the latest job openings and labor turnover (JOLTS) report of the Labor Department for August, hiring in construction dropped by 114,000—in the summer, in the midst of an AI-driven data center boom!
This bust is the wrong construction boom—it should be joint capital goods exports to, and development projects in, developing countries, together with China in particular—and deportation is obviously the wrong policy toward construction workers.
