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Immigrants make up 3.9% of Portland area construction workforce, study finds

a construction site Photo / Tina Fischer A hotel construction site in Portland.
By Tina Fischer

Greater Portland's construction workforce has a relatively small contingent of foreign-born workers compared to larger urban areas, making up 3.9% of the region's total construction workforce, a study shows.

The Portland metro construction industry employs a total of 846 foreign-born workers, out of 21,596 total construction workers, according to a report by Construction Coverage, a San Diego-based consulting business. 

Nationwide, over 25% of the construction workforce is foreign-born, and in several major metros, more than half of the workforce is foreign-born. 

Workers in drywall, roofing and painting are most likely to be foreign-born, with immigrants making up over half of the country’s workers in each trade. Other jobs where foreign workers dominate include flooring and tile installers and construction laborers.

Construction Coverage's report covers 260 U.S. metros and all 50 states, but for Maine, the numbers reflect employment just in the Portland metro area. The date is drawn from the 2023 census.

Growing trend

Data shows that the share of foreign-born workers in the construction industry has trended upward for more than a decade.

The percentage of foreign-born workers across all industries in greater Portland is 6.9%. By comparison, 18.7% of the U.S. workforce is foreign-born.

The report predicts that as federal immigration enforcement ramps up, larger markets could see employment numbers among immigrants decline and key projects delayed.

Foreign-born workers make up a substantial share of the construction workforce along the West Coast, the Southwest and the Northeast. California leads the nation with 521,249 foreign-born construction industry employees, representing 41.5% of the state’s total construction workforce. 

Texas follows with 491,132 foreign-born workers (40.2%), followed by New Jersey (38.7%), Florida (37.9%) and New York (37.1%). Together, these five states account for more than 1.6 million immigrant construction industry employees.

Foreign-born workers make up a much smaller fraction of the construction workforce in many Mountain West and New England states. In Montana, Maine and Vermont, fewer than 3.5% of construction industry employees are foreign-born, according to the report.

Construction Coverage is an online publisher of construction industry research reports.

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