By The Restoration HQ desk · · filed under Money & Consolidation
ICE enforcement plus an aging workforce is the labor crisis nobody's pricing in
Construction needs ~349,000 net new workers in 2026 just to hold steady. Immigrants are 34% of the construction workforce and 60%+ in drywall, roofing, and plaster. A joint AGC/NCCER survey found 28% of firms hit by ICE-related disruption in the prior six months, with timelines stretching.
FORLock in your crews and subs now with better pay and real training, because the shops that hoard skilled labor will own the CAT seasons.
AGAINSTCarriers are still pricing labor like it's 2019 while ICE raids gut the trades, so the Xactimate labor number is more disconnected from reality than ever.
Consensus vs. contrarianConsensus: labor's tight, pay more. Contrarian operator move: the labor crunch is your single best argument for higher labor rates in the estimate, so document local wage reality and make the carrier's stale labor number the fight.
Sources Fortune, fortune.com/2026/05/23/america-construction-… (); AGC, www.agc.org/news/2025/08/28/construction-wor… ConstructionOwners, www.constructionowners.com/news/construction…