Hello, child of construction worker here! >Carpenters and Plumbers (electricians, mechanics, etc) are _not_ unskilled Is a load of shit. At least in the USA,

Hello, child of construction worker here! >Carpenters and Plumbers (electricians, mechanics, etc) are _not_ unskilled Is a load of shit. At least in the USA, you can have one person (typically business owner) get licensed in the trade and then lease out that license for his unskilled immigrant labor force. He can run his own business and his "apprentices" are taught enough to do the work. This is the vast majority of construction. You got union projects which are a whole different ball game but union jobs do not represent the vast majority of construction in the USA. >A path for immigrants to legally work in those fields would likely push down wages, but it would also reduce the cost of those services! It doesn't reduce the cost of shit because real estate is a racket. It's not a free market economy driven by community college level econ courses. In any metropolitan downtown area that you visit most of the buildings are owned by a handful of firms. Real estate properties are increasingly managed by (you guessed it) management firms that are part of publicly traded corporations (REITs). These guys extend way beyond any downtown area and are the majority of rented out properties in cities and adjacent suburbs. Construction is a ghetto that is flooded by illegal immigrant workers. Business owners are complicit in the practice of hiring said workers to squeeze out margins. As long as liability can be passed down to someone holding some kind of license, that's all that matters. If you actually want to enter a successful trade in construction become an elevator engineer. You are 100% union and obscure and niche enough with significant safety risks that nobody is able to undercut you because there's a LOT of regulation in place to make sure people don't get stuck and die in elevators.