Essential Workers: Immigrant Construction Workers in the Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD Metro Areas

Essential Workers: Immigrant Construction Workers in the Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD Metro Areas Image

Credit: Mason Creative Services

Workers in the Construction industry provide essential services including construction related to the response to COVID-19 such as hospital construction, construction of long-term care facilities etc. Furthermore, these workers provide their services to other essential businesses such as grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, take-away restaurants etc. Similar to workers in the retail and transportation industries, workers in Construction industry cannot work from home. The nature of their work puts them at greater risk of exposure to COVID-19 as they come in close contact with their coworkers at the construction sites as they regularly share the same tools or equipment. A recent study found that construction workers were five times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than other workers, with one reason being that they leave their homes to go to work.[1] The analysis below indicates that many workers in the Construction industry remain noncitizens, do not speak English well, and work in low paying occupations. Many of them may not have health insurance or receive any benefits; a situation that makes them even more vulnerable to the virus, in addition to their working conditions.

Immigrant workers represent large shares of all workers in the Construction industry. In the Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD metro areas, there are approximately 334,300 workers in the essential Construction industry.[2] Immigrants constitute 39 percent of the workforce in this industry (approximately 130,000 people).  It is important to note that industries are the types of businesses a firm is involved in, and occupations are the tasks or functions performed by individual workers within a business. Workers within an industry can work in any occupation. Within the essential Construction industry, the top five occupations with the highest total counts of immigrant workers are: construction laborers (approximately 29,600), carpenters (21,200), painters and paperhangers (13,400), first-line supervisors of construction trades and extraction workers (7,000), and construction managers (5,500).

This analysis will focus on key socio-demographic information about immigrant workers in the Construction industry as well as on immigrant construction laborers and immigrant carpenters who make up 40 percent of all foreign-born workers in the Construction industry.

Country of Origin, Race and Ethnicity, and Gender Distribution

El Salvador is the top country of origin for immigrants in the Construction industry. Thirty-seven percent of all foreign-born workers come from El Salvador. Together with El Salvador, Guatemala (12 percent), Honduras (11 percent), Mexico (11 percent), Honduras (9 percent) and Bolivia (4 percent) are also among the top five countries of birth for immigrant workers in the construction industry. When looking at the top two occupations, El Salvador remains the top countries of origin among immigrant construction laborers (39 percent) and immigrant carpenters (43 percent). Interestingly, immigrants from Honduras, and Mexico are more likely to work as construction laborers compared to immigrants from Guatemala and Bolivia, who are more likely to work as carpenters.

In terms of race, 43 percent of immigrant workers in the Construction industry are White and 41 percent reported their race as “Other.” Most likely they are Latinos who did not identify as White or another race. When looking at the top two occupations, 47 percent of the construction laborers identify as Other (47 percent) and half of the immigrant carpenters identify as Other. 

With respect to ethnicity, the vast majority of immigrant workers in the Construction industry identify as Hispanic (who can be of any race). Eighty-eight percent of immigrant construction laborers identify as Hispanic and 87 percent of carpenters. Both of these observations are consistent with their countries of origin.

The overall majority of both foreign- and native-born workers in the Construction industry as a whole are male. However, foreign-born workers are slightly more likely to be male compared to their native-born counterparts. Ninety-four percent of foreign-born workers in the Construction industry are males compared to 86 percent of native-born. This trend continues when looking at the top two occupations. However, the share of foreign-born female construction laborers and carpenters are slightly larger compared to their native-born female counterparts.

Year of Immigration, Citizenship Status, and English Proficiency

More than half (53 percent) of immigrant workers in the Construction industry arrived in the United States after to 2000. Immigrant carpenters in the construction sector have been in the United States the longest; specifically, 46 percent of immigrant carpenters arrived in the United States before 2000 compared to 40 percent immigrant construction laborers.

Only 27 percent of immigrant workers in the Construction industry are naturalized U.S. citizens, which is consistent with how long they have been in the United States. At the same time, but also many of these workers may be Temporary Protection Status (TPS) holders or undocumented and thus ineligible to become permanent residents and consequently citizens.[3]

Similarly, with respect to the top two occupations, immigrant construction laborers are less likely to be naturalized citizens (18 percent) compared to immigrant carpenters (22 percent). One of the reasons for this difference might be the fact that immigrant carpenters have been in the United States for less time than construction laborers.

Thirty-seven percent of immigrant workers in the Construction industry are proficient in English (speak English well or very well). Immigrant construction laborers are less likely to be proficient in English (27 percent) compared to immigrant carpenters (35 percent).

Personal Income

Despite being essential workers, the majority of immigrant workers in the Construction industry earn less than $40,000 per year. More than half of immigrant workers in the Construction industry earn less than $40,000 compared to 41 percent of native-born workers. Similarly, both foreign-born construction laborers and carpenters tend to earn less when compared to their native-born counterparts.

 

[1] Bousquin, Joe. 2020. "Construction's COVID-19 record might be worse than you think." ConstructionDive, May 11, 2021 (https://www.constructiondive.com/news/constructions-covid-19-record-might-be-worse-than-you-think/589258/).

[2]The IIR defines the following the essential retail industry as: construction (the cleaning of buildings and dwellings is incidental during construction and immediately after construction)

[3] Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is a temporary humanitarian protection available to certain people from designated countries (e.g. El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) facing extreme conflict, disaster, or other critical situations. Today, TPS holders from El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti constitute more than 90 percent of all TPS beneficiaries. Individuals granted TPS may obtain work authorization, but TPS does not lead to permanent resident status or U.S. citizenship.