Will stopping immigration cause labor shortages?

Will halting immigration trigger labor shortages? I'll pull the latest data on workforce impacts.

Yes, according to most economic research, industry surveys, and labor market data, stopping or sharply reducing immigration would likely cause or worsen labor shortages - particularly in certain industries - though some policymakers argue American-born workers could fill the gaps.

1. Immigrants are a large and growing share of the labor force

Nearly thirty-one million immigrants worked in the United States in 2024, accounting for 19.2 percent of the U.S. civilian workforce.

Immigrant workers accounted for 84.7% of labor force growth between 2019 and 2024.

Research from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies found immigrants accounted for all net growth in the trades between 2013 and 2024.

Without immigration, the U.S. working-age population would have started shrinking in 2012, not 2025, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

2. Net migration has already fallen sharply

Net international migration fell from 2.7 million in 2024 to 1.3 million in 2025. Other estimates note net migration dropped 77 percent between 2024 and 2025.

Goldman Sachs analysis shows net migration has fallen 80% from the historical baseline, plunging from an average of about 1 million people per year in the 2010s to just 200,000 projected for 2026.

Projections estimate these policies have reduced the labor force by an estimated 6.8 million workers by 2028, with 4 million attributed to crackdowns on undocumented immigration and 2.8 million linked to changes in legal immigration rules. Nationwide, the number of foreign-born workers declined by more than one million between January and August 2025.

3. Sectors most vulnerable to shortages

Declining immigration threatens a key source of construction labor.

Foreign-born workers made up 35% of construction trades workers in 2024, compared with 18% of the overall labor force. Their shares exceeded 50% among drywall installers, plasterers, roofers, painters and flooring installers. Other estimates put immigrants at nearly 30% of all construction workers, more than 3.5 million people. The construction industry, which relies on immigrant labor for 34% of its workforce, has been hit particularly hard.

Other heavily dependent sectors include:

Surveys show acute strain:

Immigrants also help fill the pipeline of younger workers: 76% of foreign-born trades workers under 30 had arrived within the previous decade, so reduced immigration could weaken the pipeline as older workers leave physically demanding jobs.

There will be difficulty filling those lower wage occupations if we have a continued decline in immigration, according to Harvard researcher Riordan Frost.

4. Broader economic effects

Most economists say that immigration is good for the U.S. economy because it helps grow the size of the labor force, boost tax revenue, and increase consumer demand.

A smaller immigrant labor pool does not automatically leave a usable set of jobs waiting for native-born workers. When that labor pool shrinks, the immediate effect is usually a tighter supply of workers, not a simple transfer of employment.

One Brookings analysis estimated the enforcement surge cost 668,000 jobs. Across the cities with the sharpest rise in ICE arrests, employment fell 0.73% below what they would have seen absent the surge. Of the 668,000 jobs lost, an estimated 51,000-297,000 would have been held by American-born workers.

The Peterson Institute estimated deporting between 1.3 and 8.3 million undocumented immigrants would reduce U.S. real GDP by as much as 7 percent by 2028, while other estimates say reduced immigration could lower GDP growth by 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points and weaken consumer spending by $40 billion to $60 billion in 2025 alone.

Economists caution that a shrinking labor force could have long-term economic effects and cut annual economic growth by almost one-third by 2035.

5. Counter-argument

Some top administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, have argued that limiting immigration will raise wages and create more job opportunities for U.S.-born workers.

The administration has contended that these workers are available to counter labor shortages, with White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson saying "There is no shortage of American minds and hands to grow our labor force".

Research on wages is debated - some researchers have raised concerns about its negative impact on the low-skilled labor pool, while others have found immigration has only a minimal effect on the wages of U.S.-born workers.

In summary, industry data and academic research suggest that halting immigration would not simply reallocate jobs to native-born workers, but would shrink the overall labor force, intensify existing shortages in physically demanding, lower-paying, and high-turnover occupations, increase labor costs, delay projects, and reduce long-run GDP growth.