The U.S. had over 9.2 million job openings in May, the highest monthly number on record, and many employers complain about the difficulty of finding candidates.
So why aren’t we boosting immigration to ease the labor shortage?
Foreign-born workers have been crucial to Texas’ rapid growth for decades, keeping the great jobs machine cranking. In May, they accounted for nearly 23% of Texas’ nonfarm workers, almost 6 percentage points higher than the share nationwide.They’re more heavily concentrated in certain sectors, including manufacturing and hotels and restaurants. Those fields also have seen the largest numerical increases in job openings since the pandemic.
Together, hotels, restaurants and manufacturers had over 2 million openings in May, up by 853,000 since February 2020. Immigrants already hold a disproportionate share of jobs in those industries, and one local restaurant owner says they’re needed to staff up and get business growing again.
“We’re having tremendous difficulty recruiting people, and the younger generation is not applying for our jobs,” said Jim Baron, CEO and co-owner of North Texas restaurants Blue Mesa Grill and TNT/Tacos and Tequila.