Will stopping immigration cause labor shortages?

Short answer: Yes, in most sectors and most economists agree — but there's nuance

Most evidence points to real labor shortages in specific sectors when immigration drops sharply, though the broader economic effects (wages, GDP, prices) are debated and depend on which workers, industries, and timeframes you're looking at.

The case that shortages do occur

Sector-specific gaps are already showing up. In construction, immigrants represent approximately 30 to 36 percent of the workforce in recent years, and the industry is already facing a shortfall of 500,000 workers, according to Harvard research, with nearly 29 percent of construction workers being immigrants. In agriculture, enforcement actions and reduced inflows have led to slower hiring, higher reliance on the H-2A temporary visa program, and reports of crops left unharvested or fields idled in some regions.

Healthcare is similarly exposed: healthcare facilities depend on immigrant labor for roles ranging from nurses and physicians to support staff, with immigrants comprising about one in six hospital workers. Hospitality and food service have felt it too — without a steady supply of immigrant workers, hotels and restaurants have struggled to maintain service levels, and the cost of food in restaurants increased 3% while hotel/motel prices rose 2.6% in the same period.

Demographics make this worse over time. The underlying reason is declining birth rates: U.S. births in recent decades have been lower than what would be needed to sustain a growing working-age population, and without immigration, the working-age population would have started falling as early as 2012 — past immigration has prevented the labor force from declining. Projections suggest a large downward shift in the foreign-born labor force could lead to essentially zero growth in the total prime-age labor force in 2025, with labor force growth turning negative as early as 2035.

Recent data shows it's not fully offset by native-born workers taking the jobs. One analysis found a notable drop in the labor-force participation rate for U.S.-born workers age 16 and older, from 61.4% in February 2025 to 61% in 2026 — the opposite of what you'd expect if natives were simply filling the gap. Similarly, the unemployment rate for U.S.-born workers increased from 4.3 percent in January 2025 to 4.7 percent in January 2026 even as immigration fell, suggesting shortages aren't simply translating into more jobs for native workers — instead, overall economic activity and hiring have slowed.

Projected macro effects: A Paris School of Economics analysis modeled two deportation scenarios: a low scenario of 1.3 million deportations by 2028 reducing employment 1.1% and GDP 1.2%, versus a high scenario of up to 8.3 million deportations cutting employment 6.5% and GDP 7.4% — either scenario could exacerbate labor shortages.

The counterargument: shortages aren't inevitable

Some economists push back, arguing labor markets can adapt without immigration:

Bottom line

The weight of recent evidence — especially sector-level data from 2025-2026 — leans toward "yes," stopping or sharply reducing immigration does cause real, measurable labor shortages, particularly in construction, agriculture, healthcare, and hospitality, and contributes to price inflation in those industries. The more theoretical economic literature (like the Acemoglu research) suggests that in principle economies could adapt via productivity gains and automation over the long run, but this adjustment isn't happening fast enough to prevent shortages in the near-to-medium term, especially in physically demanding, low-automation jobs that native-born workers are less willing to fill.