GDP Growth Is Slowing Down Due to Workforce Shortages​

Texas’ Congressman Kevin Brady (TX-8) said recently that our GDP growth slowed to 2% in the second quarter of this year primarily because of workforce shortages.

“Our biggest challenge our businesses still tell us they have is workforce – they just cannot find the workers they need. So, what would you call this downturn, the ‘Help Wanted’ recession? Never before have we had such an urgency for labor,” Brady told Neil Cavuto in a Fox Business interview.

We have industries in Texas where half of the workforce is undocumented because they cannot find American workers. According to Kevin Hiebert, CEO of Load Trail LLC, a Texas-based trailer manufacturer, it’s gotten so bad that following recent ICE raids, companies are being forced to move south of the border.

“At Load Trail we actually had a labor shortage before the ICE raid. For the last four or five years we’ve been in a position where we’ve been unable to fulfill the demand for our product. In general at every one of these companies 35-50% of the workforce is undocumented so there is a heavy reliance on it. We’ve driven up wages to a point where we’re almost unable to compete with foreign manufacturers; so you’re starting to see a lot of this manufacturing base move south of the border...Since the raid last year, four different manufacturers have begun plans to move operations to Mexico,” he said on NPR radio broadcast, “Undocumented But In Demand: Immigration And Labor In America.”

For more than 12 years as spokesman for TxSIP, I have been explaining to legislators why we should not be deporting undocumented workers when workforce shortages are hindering our economic growth.

Our message remains the same: “ID and Tax-em!”

Congress can create a method for them to earn legal status, requiring positive IDs and working only for employers that deduct and match taxes. Of course, criminal background checks, and “back of the line” provisions for citizenship all apply.

Lawmakers need to come together and focus on passing sensible immigration laws. Just do it, Congress! Do it for the American people!

Enough is enough of this political circus.

Please contact your lawmaker and ask him or her to work on passing sensible immigration policy.

May God continue to bless America.