Throughout his campaign, President Donald Trump repeatedly stated plans for mass deportations, reversals of Biden-era actions, and the undoing of programs such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which cover hundreds of thousands of workers.
Now just two weeks into his second term, Trump has already made significant headway on these promises, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) already arresting more than 8,000 illegal immigrants under Trump’s “Border Czar” Tom Homan.
In this article, we’ll briefly recap Trump’s actions over the past few weeks, what this means for manufacturers and distributors in the near future, and how Veryable can help.
Immediately after being sworn in on January 20th, President Trump declared a “national emergency” at the southern border, signing 10 immigration-related executive orders and issuing a slew of edicts to carry out promises of mass deportations and border security.
Less than 36 hours after Trump issued an executive order directing the Department of Defense to address the situation at the border, Acting Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses announced that the Pentagon will be deploying 1,500+ active-duty troops to the southern border as well as air and intelligence assets in order to augment enforcement operations in the region. With 2,500 active-duty personnel already in the region, the additional 1,500 troops will represent a 60% increase in active-duty forces. As a result, illegal border crossings are already down 93% as stated by Border Czar Tom Homan this past Sunday in an interview with Fox News.
Additionally, President Trump has directed ICE to set quotas for arrests, targeting more than 1,500 per day. While this isn’t quite up to the level that Barack Obama achieved during his presidency, this will still have major impacts.
In the wake of these efforts, social media has been flooded with reports and photographs of empty factory parking lots, construction sites, grocers and big box stores, as illegal immigrants are taking precautions and trying to stay home as long as possible as the risk of deportation increases.
While ICE is initially focusing on deporting violent criminals, some have just decided to leave voluntarily in order to avoid any potential run-ins with ICE.
In the manufacturing and distribution sectors, the use of illegal labor has historically been high as companies are able to get away with paying lower hourly wages, no overtime pay, or benefits. Additionally, many feel that illegal immigrants have a better work ethic and are less likely to complain about hours or working conditions due to the fact that a worker filing any complaints with a state or federal organization would reveal their lack of documentation.
As a result, these sectors are under heightened scrutiny, which we’ve already seen in the past few weeks as multiple warehouses and factories have been raided by ICE.
This poses significant challenges for businesses - suddenly losing workforce capacity whether due to ICE raids or the fear of ICE raids means not being able to meet obligations even with mandatory overtime. The thing is, your customers don’t care - they have obligations to their own customers and bills to pay and if you can’t fulfill your promises to them, they’ll find another supplier who can. Even if you’re B2C, the same holds true - service level expectations are higher than ever due to the Amazon effect, and the customer who ordered something ahead of time as a valentines day gift to a spouse and didn’t receive it on-time won’t make the same mistake again.
But it’s not just those dependent on illegal labor that need to be able to quickly pivot. If one of your competitors gets raided by ICE and undocumented workers are arrested en masse like what happened with Salem, Ohio based meat processor Fresh Mark, this could result in a significant short-term increase in demand as customers look for alternative suppliers. When this happens, you won’t have weeks to recruit, screen, hire, and train new workers. You’ll need another source of labor that is trustworthy with regards to vetting and can be deployed immediately with no red tape.
With nearly 700k+ skilled and vetted operators on the Veryable platform, you can find workers with the exact skills and experience needed to support your operations. Additionally, the platform’s rating and review system leverages genuine reviews from previous businesses to provide an unbiased assessment of an Operator's track record. Unlike traditional resumes, which are often tailored to present a certain image, these reviews offer a truly unfiltered perspective. From within the Veryable portal, businesses have full visibility of every operator’s skills and experience within a 50-mile radius as well as the ability to search for specific criteria.
Furthermore, all Operators are thoroughly vetted through a multi-layered approach before they are allowed to bid on work, and our technology acts as a stop gap at each stage which makes it impossible for an operator to move forward without being cleared. More specifically, the onboarding process ensures identity verification through SSN, Address, Legal Name, banking institutions, and tax documentation/reporting to ensure our Operators are over 18 years old, have a clean background, and are authorized to work in the USA. Additionally, if any inquiries come up, Veryable can quickly prove the validity of operators.
With staffing agencies this isn’t always the case, and just a simple google search will provide a plethora of stories about these agencies exploiting loopholes and skipping verification processes so that they can utilize illegal labor. This is incredibly risky for businesses working with these types of agencies, because although these workers may not necessarily be your employees, your name is tied to the strength of the vetting process. In the event of any ICE raids, the headline is going to read “Your company busted for employing illegal immigrants.” This will be very costly when you factor in losing customers, and having to pay hefty fines.
Veryable provides access to these skilled and vetted workers without the inefficiencies of the hiring process or limited vetting and lack of control over worker selection associated with staffing agencies. In fact, you can typically find workers for the next day’s work if you post during the morning of the day before. This is actually how we advise most businesses to use the platform, as it allows for maximum flexibility to adapt to real-time labor needs.
This means if you suddenly lose part of your workforce due to ICE arrests, or one of your competitors gets raided by ICE and your sales team’s phones start ringing off the hook from their customers, you can confidently say yes without any hesitation and have additional workers in the next day to tackle increased demand.
Once you’ve tested the waters with these workers, you can add the ones you like to your labor pool. This way when the need arises in the future, you already have workers familiar with your operations that are ready to hit the ground running.
One of the key benefits of the Veryable solution is that you gain the capacity you need without having to inflate payroll expenses by adding to your full-time headcount or locking into restrictive staffing agency contracts.
This means if demand suddenly drops off a cliff whether for a few days or a few weeks, you can instantly scale down by simply posting fewer ops or none at all.
This is especially beneficial in times of uncertainty. At the end of the day, we don’t fully know what is in store for Trump’s second term, and in addition to being able to quickly scale up to capitalize on revenue generation opportunities, manufacturers and distributors also need the ability to quickly scale down to keep costs in control if the need arises.
Without this capability, it’s not always feasible to pursue new business opportunities and try to seize new market share. For starters, it’s incredibly slow and inefficient to go through the hiring process or deal with the red tape of a staffing agency, to the point where you may not be able to scale up quickly enough to capitalize on the opportunity. Secondly, it’s also incredibly risky and hurts your bottom line if you don’t have a constant need for extra help or may have to lay off some of your new hires a month down the road.
With Veryable you don’t even have to think about this; you can confidently say “yes” to any and every opportunity without hesitation, knowing that you won’t be left having to decide between layoffs or eating the excess overhead costs if demand suddenly drops.
While it’s tempting to rely on illegal sources of labor due to the high supply and lower perceived costs, building an on-demand labor pool and bringing in skilled operators only when needed is far less costly than carrying additional full-time labor, even if it’s at a cheaper rate. This is especially true when you factor in the risk of being assessed steep fines, and the cost of suddenly losing capacity and being left unable to fulfill obligations to customers.
If the past couple of weeks are any indication of what’s to come, Trump isn’t playing around when it comes to fulfilling his deportation promises. Regardless of whether he ends up deporting a few million like we're on track foor, or the entirety of the more than 10 million that are currently living in America, this will have a significant impact on the U.S. manufacturing and distribution sectors as a whole. Whether one of your facilities or one of your competitors is subject to ICE raids, there will be no time to wait around - you’ll need to react quickly in order to maintain business continuity, avoid losing customers, and capitalize on new revenue generation opportunities.
In addition to gaining quick and easy access to an infinite supply of legal labor by partnering with Veryable, manufacturers and distributors gain access to a dedicated team of experts, and proven strategies that not only boost operational efficiency and reduce costs, but help them to prepare proactively for these changes.
To learn more about how Veryable can help you navigate these changes with confidence, check out our “Navigating Trump 2.0” page. Here you’ll find more resources that will help you thrive in the coming months. As things continue to evolve, we’ll be publishing more articles like this.
If you’re ready to get started with on-demand labor, either create your free business profile or contact your local team.
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