Why Migrant Women Are Turning Toward Construction Jobs

Roxana García sat in a packed classroom on a recent night in Jackson Heights, Queens, with 38 strangers — a chef, an I.T. technician, and a business manager among them — all with a single goal: To get a job in construction, one of the few industries open to New York’s surging migrant population.

Ms. García, 36, a nurse who flew to New York three months ago from Guayaquil, Ecuador, with her partner and two children, has subsisted since then on housecleaning jobs, but in construction, she sees a future: being able to afford better care for her prediabetic teenager and the means to take her family to Disneyland.

“I came here with a suitcase full of dreams,” she said in Spanish. “If I can make this into a career, that would be excellent, because I can’t focus on what I once was.”

Attracted by the prospect of steadier work and better pay, more migrant women are entering the male-dominated construction industry, social service providers said, at a time when the city is struggling to accommodate tens of thousands of asylum seekers.

They face sexism from co-workers and employers, exploitative labor practices, and dangerous conditions on the job. But for newcomers who may not qualify for legal residency for years, if ever, it can also be the first rung on the ladder to a better life.

And with the shift, the women are challenging a culture of machismo that could open new pathways for future asylum seekers, community groups said.

Demand for the jobs is intense. In 2019, before the pandemic and a rush of migration from Central and South America, the Department of Buildings issued 20,423 Site Safety Training cards, certification that workers are required to carry on large construction sites. In the first half of this year, the city has already issued three times as many cards.

In order to get certified, applicants have to take 40 hours of safety training and pass a test, although they are not required to have a Social Security number. Of the more than 300,000 people in New York City with active Site Safety Training cards, 94 percent are men, according to the Department of Buildings.

But the ranks of women entering the industry is growing. Worker’s Justice Project, an immigrant labor advocacy group based in Brooklyn, first offered a women’s construction safety class in 2010 with just 8 students. This month, they held two women’s classes, each with close to 40 students, the legal limit.

Another immigrant services group, NICE, based in Queens, said nearly half of students enrolled in their construction safety classes this month were women. Their classes are offered for free, while private companies can charge more than $400.

More than 78,700 asylum seekers have come to New York City since last spring, with more than 2,000 new arrivals per week, according to the city.

Unlike past waves, where it was common for single men to make the journey, more people are crossing the southern border as families, as they flee violence and economic issues in countries like Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, said Mario Russell, the executive director of the Center for Migration Studies of New York.

Construction is one of the few industries that’s hiring, which may explain why increasing numbers of women are being drawn to the field.

“It could simply be that there’s nothing out there for them,” he said.

Many newcomers do not realize how dangerous the work is, said Ligia Guallpa, the executive director of Worker’s Justice Project. Last year in New York City there were 11 building construction worker deaths on the job, the most since 2019, according to an industry safety report.

Still, construction jobs — those open to nonunion workers — are a rare source of opportunity for asylum seekers.

“It’s job security,” said Yadira Sanchez, a co-founder of Worker’s Justice Project, who noted that roles commonly offered to migrant women, like house cleaning, offer more sporadic hours and often pay less.

There’s also opportunity for wage growth, if workers get certified in specialized skills, like putting up scaffolding or flagging, the role of directing traffic at work sites.

But making the transition is difficult. Adriana Ariza, a 49-year-old woman from Mexico, first got her Site Safety Training card in 2016, after quitting a job in the wig-making trade. In that job, she was paid $9 an hour, less than half what men in her role were earning.

As the first woman on a team of demolition contractors, who haul heavy debris from build sites, Ms. Ariza’s pay jumped to $15 an hour.

She was often ostracized by co-workers. “They used to tell me, ‘I have more right to this job, because I’m the breadwinner in my family,’” she said in Spanish. “But so am I.”

Ms. Ariza worked in construction for three years, expanding her skills to painting, flooring and flagging, though her pay never increased. She left the industry after hurting her back, and now works for nonprofits that support immigrants.

She still credits construction with giving her a leg up in the work force.

“More than anything, it gave me the chance to know that I’m capable of doing things that only men did,” she said. “If we want to, we can do what we want.”

Sexism in construction work is nothing new. María De la paz Mejía, 62, was a journalist in Colombia before making a midcareer pivot to construction in her late 30s.

“I came in as an intruder, and I had all these men against me,” she said about her first job in the field.

She arrived in New York three months ago and is training to apply her skills here. She knows her age puts her at a disadvantage in a field of much younger laborers, but she is counting on her experience to get by.

“I survived once, and I think I can survive again,” she said.

For many of the women, construction is a means to another end. Dora Yugla, 29, who arrived in New York in February, was a baker in Ecuador, and someday hopes to open a pizzeria.

She said she crossed seven countries to reach the United States, before a Christian charity in Houston paid for her flight to New York. She is staying in a Manhattan hotel that has been converted into a migrant shelter.

Ms. Yugla got her Site Safety Training card to become a construction worker in June, after a spate of cleaning jobs where she said her employers paid far less than what she was promised.

“For now, it’s the best option, because you have to speak the language to be someone in this country,” she said in Spanish.

Often, the first jobs women gain in construction are similar to the low-paying domestic tasks they are trying to escape: site cleanup that involves lugging heavy materials and being exposed to industrial chemicals. They can sometimes lead to more specialized work.

The construction sites range from small home renovations in the suburbs to high-rise apartment towers in Manhattan.

Contractors who hire undocumented workers have begun more readily accepting women on job sites, but it often has come at a price, said Hildalyn Colón Hernández, the deputy director of NICE.

The organization receives about 60 to 100 complaints of wage theft every month, she said.

“This is the perfect season for unscrupulous employers, because they have a huge market,” she said. “It’s a race to the bottom.”

Finding work can still be a desperate search, even with the right training.

On a recent morning at a popular spot for day laborers in Jackson Heights known as La Parada — the stop — hundreds of men and women waited along a three-block span for unmarked vans to pull over and solicit workers.

Contractors who last year paid $200 to $250 for a 10-hour shift might now offer $80 for the same work, because there is now so much competition on the corner, several workers said. The minimum wage in the city is $15 an hour.

The alternative, workers said, is to wait in line at the offices of nonprofit groups that have a limited number of construction job referrals, or else pay hundreds of dollars to private employment agencies that may not find worthwhile matches.

For Ms. García, the former nurse, construction is still her best shot at a dependable income, she said, though she would eventually like to take up her old profession.

Her goal for now, she said, is to find stability for her two children, who are staying with her and her partner in a Manhattan migrant shelter.

Her 15-year-old daughter has already enrolled in her school’s J.R.O.T.C. program, in the hopes of someday joining the army, and her three-year-old son wants to become a firefighter.

“I am here for their dreams,” she said.