Well yes, supply and demand when a once booming area dries up is extreme for a while. It not only drove the labor price down, I’m sure the final product price was beat down too.
Your son’s problem - and I’m sorry to hear it - is why I am a self employed type....but even as “the man” - my pay dipped significantly in the economic crash. I mean SIGNIFICANTLY.
Now I’ve never been involved in construction per se - no home building - so I don’t know if the cheap Hispanic labor is all illegal, or part legal and part illegal. I don’t know how many of them are good at what they do in that industry.
One of the many services we offered was landscape maintenance and landscape installations. In that industry, the Hispanics liked it more, and were on balance just very good at it. They were also culturally aligned with doing the same work day after day for many years, thus providing continuity to the staff.
Were some illegal? Perhaps. I don’t know. They all had paperwork. The e-verify system was not around during the majority of the time I had a hand in the personnel, so I would imagine as e verify works through the system, it will slowly clean it up.
I thank you.
May God bless you and yours.