There’s one less-noticed factor that is impacting the current shortage of cheap service labor and shortage of affordable housing: the education level of immigrants has been rising, an article in Bloomberg by Conor Sen said.
Sen cited a recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine entitled "The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration" that shows that since 1970, average educational attainment of Mexican immigrants has increased to 9.5 years from 5.7 years.
From the article:
This "up-skilling" of the immigrant labor force is contributing to the country's labor and housing woes. Historically, immigrants provided much of the muscle for building the nation's infrastructure.
On the side, Sen added that another side effect of this is that they are impacting demand.
Sen writes:
Today's immigrants, many arriving with college degrees, are headed for other careers. These individuals aren't going to contribute to the supply of housing.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. But we should be prepared for the shift, as long as new American immigrants are more likely to be buying suburban houses than building them.
