The Navy secretary called for increasing legal immigration of skilled blue-collar workers to help address delays and quality issues in shipbuilding.
The U.S. is falling behind countries like China in ship construction.
“What we’ve got to do is open up the spigot a bit, basically, on legal immigration to allow blue-collar workers to come here … so they can actually work in our shipyards and be employed by the types of trades that are open to shipyard workers,” Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said.
While the Navy is investing billions to upgrade shipyards, facilities remain in poor condition.
The secretary said the Navy would also retrain Americans for these jobs.
“While the condition of the shipyards’ facilities generally improved, they are still among the lowest scored depot facilities across DoD. All shipyards have an average facility condition that is in the ‘Poor’ category,” GAO stated in the report.
However, mass migration promoted by the Biden administration reduces incentives to boost domestic worker training and productivity.
Del Toro noted the Navy would “devote an enormous amount of resources into re-training [American] individuals so they can actually work in our shipyards and be employed by the types of trades that are open to shipyard workers, for example.”
“I think the bigger problem … is actually the lack of blue-collar workers that we have in this country,” Del Toro said.
It provides an excuse for companies to avoid investing in workers and innovation.
While some argue immigration fills workforce needs, polls show public opposition, especially when Americans lose opportunities as companies import cheaper foreign labor.
“Regretfully, we’re a pretty divided country politically, you might say, but it really is time for Congress to get together and pass comprehensive reform and increase the amount of legal immigration that we actually allow into this country [and] increase the amount of work visa programs that are authorized for blue-collar workers to come from other nations and actually do the work here as has actually existed since the founding of our government, very much so.”
There is a debate around balancing these issues to strengthen both national security and the economy.
