In 2025, Texas is at a crossroads with the workforce landscape. The worker shortfall reached a turning point as the state faces explosive economic expansion and growth. The resultant is a vacancy of over 116,000 job roles across different industries like hospitality, agriculture, and construction, increasingly risking the pace of overall economic development and stability.
To mitigate this growing crisis, Texas employers are leveraging the EB-3 program. This is a visa program, a US immigration pathway, allowing foreign laborers to take on the essential positions, along with legal and secure permanent residency via EB-3 Green Card jobs. Here, we shall uncover the implications of the EB-3 visa in transforming the overall Texas workforce landscape while supporting the various sectors to be the strength of the state’s economy.
Unraveling the labor crisis in Texas
Texas has always been at the top of the competition when it comes to emerging businesses, employment prospects, and population growth. However, this consistent development outpaced the ability of the labor market to produce eligible employees.
- According to the Texas Workforce Commission, as of mid-2025, there are a recorded +116,000 job vacancies.
- +32,000 open positions in the construction sector are due to fast infrastructure growth and urban development.
- Over 45,000 vacant roles in the hospitality industry as a result of increasing demand and tourism rebounds in urban centers.
- Minimum of 22,000 vacancies in the agriculture sector, pressuring harvest schedules and food supply chains.
These open job positions prove the inefficiency of traditional recruitment approaches. With historical lows in the local unemployment rates and domestic laborers increasingly shifting to the technology and services sectors, Texas employers are now seeking to benefit from the EB-3 Green Card jobs program to overcome this growing gap.
What is the EB-3 Visa, and how does it benefit?
As hinted above, as one of the pathways of the US employment-based immigration system, the EB-3 visa is specially designed to fill job roles with foreign workers subject to the unavailability of eligible US workers. It is also a sure option for foreign nationals to secure permanent Green Card residency in the US. These workers fall under three subcategories:
- Skilled workers – For jobs with at least 2 years of experience or training.
- Professionals are workers who hold a US bachelor’s degree or its foreign equivalent.
- Unskilled workers – Positions with no particular skills, or having less than 2 years of job experience or training.
Therefore, apart from the program’s dual intent, it effectively resolves the labor crisis by generating a sustainable and long-term workforce for essential job roles.
Notable benefits for Texas employers
Concerning the Texas labor crisis, the EB-3 visa pathway offers many strategic advantages:
- Faster recruitment in 2025- Current administrative and legislative changes have resulted in reducing the EB-3 visa processing wait times for high-demand industries.
- Permanent labor solution- In contrast, temporary visas like H-2A and H-2B, the EB-3 program offers green cards to prospective workers, promising long-term employment and residence stability.
- Broader global reach- Employers can hire skilled and unskilled workers from a global pool for various critical roles.
Most impacted and most benefited industries
The EB-3 program is indeed crucial for Texas’s core industries, including agriculture, hospitality, and construction, providing a stable and long-term workforce to mitigate the domestic labor shortage.
Agriculture sector
In Texas, agricultural employers often encounter seasonal workforce volatility due to pressing visa limitations. Here, the EB-3 visa program presents a suitable recruitment alternative that enables employers to sponsor foreign workers for various permanent positions in:
- Dairy and poultry farm operations
- Crop harvesting and packaging
- Food processing and meatpacking
This allows agribusinesses to adopt full-time EB-3 workers recruitment instead of seasonal hiring.
Hospitality sector
The tourism industry has successfully regained its momentum as many cities in Texas, including San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin, are seeing millions of visitors. However, the challenge this boom created is understaffed hotels and restaurants. To ensure smooth and efficient operations, hospitality employers are seeking to sponsor EB-3 workers for various positions, like:
- Hotel housekeepers and front desk staff
- Facility maintenance
- Line cooks, sous chefs, and chefs
Construction sector
Expansion and growth have led in Texas’s skyline to transform. The state’s construction sector is overloaded with all the residential housing projects, commercial complexes, and highways. The EB-3 program opens a path to staff essential roles, including:
- General masons and laborers
- Welders and steelworkers
- Heavy equipment operators
Texas contractors are seeing a consistent flow of manpower for the most prolonged projects via the EB-3 Green Card jobs.
The economic impact of EB-3 Green Card jobs
The influence of EB-3 visa workers goes beyond just workplace productivity:
- Tax contributions: The EB-3 visa holders make up an estimated $3.5+ billion in local and state taxes annually, funding roads, schools, and other public services.
- Boost to state GDP: According to the American Immigration Council, immigrant workers are liable for more than $40 billion in numbers regarding the Texas’s annual economic output.
- Multiplier effect: According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, an estimated 1.2 additional US jobs are generated thanks to EB-3 workers.
This indicates that the EB-3 Green Card jobs program is not just a temporary solution, but a long-term and practical option for Texas’s economic growth ecosystem.
Challenges and opportunities ahead
Despite its immense perks, the EB-3 program does bring certain challenges:
- Immigration policy changes could potentially create unprecedented future approvals and allocations.
- Sponsorship cost can put off prospective employers from participating.
- Processing complexities are consistent due to the restricted issuance of visa numbers than the demand.
Therefore, several new proposals are accounted for to scale the EB-3 program’s success:
- Raise the EB-3 visa caps to meet the increasing labor market demands.
- Digitalize and streamline the USCIS processing for employer-based applications.
- Mandate tax incentives or subsidies for small employers that sponsor alien workers.
Take action now
As this point, the prosperity of Texas is highly reliant on labor. So, if you are an employer seeking to fill vacant positions or a foreign worker wanting to secure US residency, it is only right to consider the EB-3 program. Connect with immigrant professionals like Casas Immigration to traverse the lengthy and intricate visa application process while maintaining compliance.
