The labor shortage exacerbated by President Trump's hard-line stance on immigration is causing high construction costs in Texas and around the country.
Fox News Channel Reporter Casey Stegall spoke with Stan Marek, CEO of MAREK Construction in Houston to get a glimpse into what the challenge is like on the ground in one of the busiest building markets:
Just how bad is it? According to the National Association of Home Builders, more than 56 percent of developers nationwide are reporting labor shortages.
NAHB says the problems started when the recession hit and domestic construction workers dropped out of the market to find other jobs. At the same time, immigrant workers went back to their home countries. But as the economy has picked up and the construction industry has heated up, those workers have remained missing.
The problem is compounded in hot real estate markets where more and more housing projects are finding fewer and fewer workers. In places like North Texas, recently, it's been a triple whammy.
"Half of the workers in construction in Texas are undocumented," Marek said.
"We do hear that there are a lot of undocumented workers that are leaving the state, going to other states that don't have the anti-immigrant sentiment and many of them are going back to Mexico."
Watch Stegall’s full Fox News Channel Report below.
