>>The next question is: who will get hired for all these construction jobs? Will they be contract jobs that get bid on by commercial enterprises? Who do contractors hire now? Illegal immigrants.
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>Not if they're union jobs (to open another can of worms).
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>FWIW, I don't think most _skilled_ labor jobs get a lot of illegals, and the kind of construction we're talking about will require a fair amount of skilled labor.
>
>
>Tamar

Could you provide an example of why you think that the kind of construction we are talking about will mostly be skilled labor and that skilled labor will not be immigrant labor? Unless oversight and enforcement is in place, I don't see it happening.

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/85429

“The vast majority of new construction jobs in 2006 were filled by foreign-born Latinos, many of them recently arrived,” the report states.

Raw numbers support that conclusion: One in four construction jobs in 2006 was held by a Hispanic worker, with one in five by someone who was born in another country.

The figures, which were based on reports by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, also show that construction employment grew 5 percent between 2005 and 2006.

But Hispanic employment in the industry was up 14.5 percent.

Put another way, two-thirds of the net new employment in construction came from Hispanics.