US seeks 456,000 construction workers with salaries up to 75,000€

US seeks 456,000 construction workers: up to 75,000€ per year

The United States faces a construction labor shortage recognized by industry groups and employers: 456,000 workers are needed, with salaries reaching 75,000 euros annually. The figure, published by El Español, reopens an uncomfortable question: if salary is the issue, why do those complaining about the Spanish labor market not pack their bags?

The answer circulating in economic circles lacks epic. The US shortage of guasons coexists with the accelerated expulsion of migrant workers, led by ICE, and a construction reality very different from Europe's: there, brick is almost a luxury item, and the average house is built with wood, drywall, and vinyl mimicking wood. A tent installer, critics argue, is what we would call a bricklayer here.

What is paid and what is built in the US

The salary of up to 75,000 euros gross annually sounds like a stunt until put in context. In major US cities, this figure is a normal salary and does not provide a high standard of living. As a repeated calculation points out: the cost of living eats up the difference. The square meter in the US is already at the price of a Spanish square meter, but with shed quality, according to the most repeated comparison.

Construction quality is the other front. Facing the brick and concrete house, the average American home is resolved with a wooden frame, drywall, and plastics. Some go further and compare recent apartment blocks, also built in wood, with Pripyat: abandoned Soviet buildings from four decades ago that still stand there. When even the Soviets built better than you, the argument concludes, you have failed as a civilization.

The problem is not the salary, it is health insurance

Here appears the data that dismantles the migration fantasy. In the US, a work accident with permanent injury requiring lifelong treatment or resulting in paraplegia leaves the worker in a critical economic situation: social protection is minimal and healthcare costs are extremely high. Suing the company is another dead end: a lawyer charges from 500 dollars an hour.

Union pressure in the sector, far from translating into a shield, leaves the worker exposed. That is the calculation no one makes when looking only at the gross annual salary. The high salary compensates for the risk only as long as the body holds up.

The Spanish paradox: surplus unemployed, shortage of guasons

In Spain, there is a shortage of guasons, recognized without dispute. But domestic professionals refuse to earn a salary they consider demigratory, and the sector continues to fail to fill positions. Meanwhile, some are training for trades thought to be dead: more than half of the students at the Municipal School of Trades at Empleo Verde find employment, with 315 students in their first year of activity.

The contrast is the hook of the matter. Those who claim there is no work here have not manifested in mass to take advantage of the American opportunity. Neither have the enthusiasts of the American dream who promised to exile themselves taken the step. The question floats: is it the salary, or is it that no one wants to build wooden houses 8,000 kilometers from the homeland?

Spanish brick and its chemical memory

The conversation shifted to the recent past of the sector in Spain. During the real estate bubble, high bricklayer salaries coexisted with addictions: cocaine circulated in construction site parking lots, and the burst left workers with high incomes who lost everything in very little time. A report on Murcia documented this combination of addiction and unemployment after the crash.

The discussion on the real extent of this phenomenon remains open. Some argue it was a localized problem, while others defend it permeated the entire sector. What no one disputes is that the easy money from brick left a chemical and labor hangover that took years to metabolize.

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With 456,000 vacant positions and salaries up to 75,000 euros, labor migration to the US should be massive. It remains anecdotal. And those who complain about the Spanish market continue to wait, sofa in hand, for someone to explain why they do not take the flight.